


The kindred of blackness and impulse

by robokittens



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Anal Sex, Asphyxiation, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Closeted Character, Developing Relationship, First Kiss, Hand Jobs, Identity Porn, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Jealousy, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Murder, Necrophilia, Oral Sex, Semi-Public Sex, Sex Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:21:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 31,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25099816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robokittens/pseuds/robokittens
Summary: With halting breaths, the occasional silence, air sucked in sharply through his teeth, Cornelius spoke: the base work he would do on a beautiful ship,Terrorspoken as if it were a word that meant glory. Neatly pressed uniforms and rough living, harsh command and the freedom of the open sea. The chill of the arctic, like nothing Ellis had ever imagined, like nothingCorneliushad ever imagined, a sparse and desolate splendor."And the other end," Cornelius said, with another shuddering exhale. "After we cross the Passage — once wefindthe Passage — the Pacific Ocean. I hear it's beautiful … more beautiful than anything I've ever seen."
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Cornelius Hickey, Commander James Fitzjames/Cornelius Hickey, Cornelius Hickey & Lt John Irving, Cornelius Hickey/Original Cornelius Hickey, Cornelius Hickey/Original Male Character(s), William Gibson/Cornelius Hickey
Comments: 41
Kudos: 39





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> thank you, so very very much, to everyone on twitter or discord or the dms or wherever who dealt with my bitching about this and/or cheered me on and/or talked me out of giving up on it for fucking ... months. thank you especially to a handful of you (you know who you are!) 
> 
> thank you _especially_ especially to vigilantejam for the patience and handholding and yelling at me about americanisms and only very occasionally distracting me with shiny things (knives).
> 
> to reserve: sorry i spent all these words on the boot goofer. love you!
> 
> and honestly, in the end, ultimately: thank you to poppy z brite. couldn't have done it without you.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I'll tell you what," he said. He put two fingers under Cornelius' chin, tipped it up so he could meet his wide eyes. "I'll give you a kiss before you go. As a gift, to take with you to the Arctic."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content notes: there is some sex in here that's had after folks have been drinking, and also something somnophilia-adjacent, but i didn't feel either were major enough to be worth tagging for.
> 
> if you wanna skip the murders (which like, this is ~30k of hickey fic, but i respect your choices), instructions to do so are in the end notes 👍

> _No. I am not the law in your mind,  
>  the grandfather of watchfulness.  
>  I am the law of your members,  
>  the kindred of blackness and impulse.  
>  See. Your hand shakes.  
>  It is not palsy or booze.  
>  It is your Doppelgänger  
>  trying to get out._  
>  Anne Sexton, Rumpelstiltskin

—

**April, 1845:**

"You're like a girl," Charley drawled from the bed. "You've always got to look pretty." 

Ellis set the straight razor down gently on the edge of the wash stand and turned to look at him. There was still some foam on his cheek where he hadn't got to yet, and it itched a bit, but it was better to head Charley off early. He took too much pride in being distracting.

"Is that a problem for you now?" he asked, and Charley laughed. They'd been sharing a bed on and off for years; sometimes carnally and sometimes not — more not, lately, since to hear Charley tell it he'd found himself a girl. He certainly came back to the boarding house disheveled at all hours often enough, so Ellis was inclined to believe it.

Charley was handsome enough, and his teeth, though crooked, were annoyingly white; it made it unfortunately difficult to resist him when he put them on display. He was, also unfortunately, well aware of it. "Oh, I suppose I don't mind it," he said, grinning like he was up to something. Ellis scoffed, turned back to the basin and picked up his razor again to finish the job.

He splashed some water over his smooth cheeks and cleaned the razor off carefully, slipping it in his pocket before he bothered to apply the same cloth to his own face. It was only a matter of a few feet back to the bed, where he elbowed Charley in the side. 

"Shove over, will you?" he grumbled, and Charley did, just enough for Ellis to climb in next to him. They could only afford the one bed between the two of them if they wanted to keep themselves in food and drink as well, but it was a fairly nice one all things considered. This wasn't the worst place they'd ever stayed, or even the worst place they'd ever stayed indoors. The mattress was soft enough that it didn't hurt when Ellis flopped onto his back. He shut his eyes and didn't open them when he felt Charley's fingers on his cheek.

"What's this, then?" Charley asked. His voice was quiet but sure, and Ellis knew what he was angling for. "Got yourself all dolled up and then got right back in bed?"

Ellis shrugged, as expansively as he could while he was on his back with someone leaning over him. "Nowhere to go quite yet," he said. 

"Kill some time then, yeah?" 

He didn't say anything, just tilted his head up and let Charley drag his lips along his jaw. It had been a few days since Charley had shaved but he wasn't nearly as particular about it, and besides his beard didn't come in nearly as fast, and Ellis held back a shiver as the stubble scraped over his neck. He let his mouth drop open though, just a little, and had barely managed to suck in a breath before Charley covered it with his own.

Charley wasn't a bad kisser — maybe the opposite, in fact, as he sometimes seemed content to lay around and kiss for hours. Ellis couldn't; he got riled up too fast. Kissing wasn't awful, but it was a means to an end. He put a hand on Charley's arm and tugged him in closer, until there was a whole warm body covering him.

"There we go," Charley murmured into his mouth, as if he'd had to talk Ellis into it. His hard length pushed into Ellis' thigh and Ellis shifted under him, so that they were more well-aligned and so that Charley had to suppress a moan. _There we go_ , Ellis thought. He smiled into the kiss. Charley pushed a hand up under his shirt, hiking it up and pressing flat against his stomach so that Ellis could feel every one of his own breaths.

He rutted his hips up against Charley's; he wasn't in the mood to get buggered, whatever Charley may have been feeling, but this would certainly do for both of them for now. He set his teeth to the top of Charley's shoulder and bit down, lightly and then harder when Charley groaned. The next sound he made was almost pained, so Ellis kept biting. "Stop that," Charley said, but his voice was breathy and strained and didn't sound a bit like he meant it.

"You stop," Ellis said a moment later, replacing his mouth on Charley's shoulder with his hands and pushing at him. He could feel his climax approaching and didn't have time nor inclination to wash his clothes before he went out, and so shoved his trousers and drawers out of the way as best he could with Charley still working against him.

"You're so fussy," Charley said, sounding distracted and not at all fussed himself as he wrapped a hand around Ellis' cock, tugging at it roughly. He didn't seem to mind when, after a minute of this treatment, Ellis spent all over Charley's trousers instead.

"Filthy," he said, and Ellis couldn't keep back his laughter.

"I thought you said I was fussy?"

"Both, I suppose," Charley said, but without much thought behind it as he'd sat back and pushed his hand down his own pants, clearly with the aim to get them as dirty inside as they were outside. His other hand he put low on Ellis' belly, as if to hold him down, or as if to hold himself up. He kept his eyes on Ellis' mouth as he reached his completion. 

After a moment he slumped back, a heavy weight on Ellis' legs. Ellis let him rest for just a moment before pushing at his thighs, shoving him away. "Off," he said. " _Now_ I've got places to be."

Charley moved, swung his leg back over Ellis' so he could collapse dramatically on the bed next to him. "What places?" he asked, as if he didn't know.

— 

The pub wasn't the nicest, but anyone who could afford to drink in a nicer place could also afford a nicer boy than Ellis. 

He looked nice enough, he knew, or at least nice enough to look at: smooth cheeks and red hair just long enough to curl around his ears, clothes clean and well-pressed enough to look respectable without looking _proper_. Someone might think him out of place on the first glance, with all these rough bodies around him, but not on the second.

A man stood next to him, closer than politeness would dictate but not so close as to make his interests entirely clear. He _was_ rough, though, and certainly large, at least half again as broad as Ellis in the shoulders. He would want to bend Ellis over somewhere, certainly, and probably somewhere filthy, his manner just as coarse as in this bar. 

Ellis still wasn't in the mood to get buggered, though, and it didn't look as though this man could pay enough to get him there. But then, he also didn't look like he would care. And if he _could_ pay enough, after all, Ellis really didn't either.

There was a boy, though, pressed into a corner across the room. He looked far more out of place than Ellis did: smoother skin, and flushed to boot in a way that didn't look like it came out of a tin, although Ellis had only seen him work through a single pint since he had walked in.

If he was there for the same purpose as every other pretty boy in that room, he didn't look as though he was prepared for it.

There was something nearly charming about it, Ellis thought. Charming or useful, at least — although if for the boy (were he more clever than he looked) or for Ellis (if he looked less clever than he was) he couldn't yet say. Whichever it turned out to be, it was no effort for Ellis to dislodge the hand trying to creep onto his thigh and cross the room.

"Ellis," he said, and held his hand out. The boy swallowed hard — around his drink, most likely, which he shifted to his opposite hand so he could place his right in Ellis' own.

"Cornelius," he said, with only a slight delay. His accent was muted in the loud room, but distinctly Irish, even on the one word. Ellis held on to his hand for just a moment longer, just enough to see if it would put more color in the boy's cheeks. It did.

He let his lingering grasp go and watched Cornelius' fingers twitch just slightly as he brought his hand back to his side. "You're not from around here." 

It wasn't the most interesting conversational gambit, but it did the trick; armed only with the boy's name he soon learned his origins (Limerick, the youngest of four sons but with a younger sister to dote on), his occupation (caulker), and the reason he'd come to Greenhithe (to work on a ship bound for the North Pole).

"You're a sailor?" Ellis asked. He knew nothing of ships except that the men who loved them could, and would, speak on the subject for ages. 

Cornelius laughed, bright and louder than Ellis would have expected, an unexpectedly sweet sound. "No," he said. "This will be my first voyage. I'm just to be the caulker's mate, so neither pretty nor exciting … but we're sailing for the Northwest Passage."

Ellis couldn't be sure if it was the boy's accent, or the light in his eyes when he said it, the near-breathless excitement, but there was a touch of magic to the phrase. He could almost picture it: standing on the deck of a great ship as it cut its way through arctic waters, a fine wool coat keeping him warm despite the chill in the air, the companionship of men with nothing to lose and the world to gain — 

Nothing but salted meats for months, rats in the hold, everyone crammed in and at each other's throats. No, Ellis had lived like that, and on solid ground with the opportunity to walk away.

"It sounds awful," he said, but he elbowed Cornelius lightly in the ribs and smiled as if he didn't mean it. The boy laughed again, with his whole body, and when he settled this time he was shoulder to shoulder with Ellis, the distance between them disappearing.

Ellis nudged their hips together, and heard Cornelius suck a sharp breath in through his teeth. He didn't move away. _Right, then_ , Ellis thought. He wouldn't get much out of it, but it might be a bit of fun — and there was some time yet before Cornelius left on his voyage. 'Not much' could add up.

"Come on," he said, and tipped his head toward the door. Cornelius hesitated; he looked like a creature startled, suddenly exposed to the light. Ellis, a creature of dark corners and back alleys himself, reached blindly and touched the very tips of his fingers to Cornelius' thigh. "Come," he said again, more quietly. 

He walked out, not waiting to see if Cornelius would follow him.

The sun was low in the sky but still bright, and Ellis squinted into it. It would be darker, he knew, across the street and down the path, into the trees that made this pub so favored by certain populations.

He leaned against the side of the building, and had barely finished rolling his cigarette when Cornelius approached him, looking even more the frightened dormouse. The sun made his fair hair look even lighter, his eyes almost startlingly dark against his pale skin, the blue of his waistcoat and the dun of his jacket. When he turned toward Ellis, the setting sun highlighted the flush high on his cheekbones, the shades of brown in his eyes.

Wordlessly, Ellis offered him the cigarette. Wordlessly, Cornelius refused it.

They stood there a moment, looking at each other. Ellis wondered if Cornelius would break the gaze first. He wondered what Cornelius thought was going on here. After a moment he said, "Come on then," and like a spell had broken Cornelius jerked his eyes away.

He followed Ellis into the woods, at heel like a well-trained dog.

They didn't go too far: only far enough away from the road, from prying eyes that don't mean to be prying. There was no guarantee of privacy, merely discretion, but Ellis didn't mention that to Cornelius as he stopped abruptly, shoved him up against a tree, enjoyed the gasping breath it shocked out of him.

"What do you want," Ellis said, voice low.

"I —" The hitches in Cornelius' breaths sounded almost like hiccoughs. "I don't. I don't know what I can … afford." The last he said almost bashfully, as if it would offend Ellis. As if either of them were pretending this was something other than what it was.

"Three quid if you want the full thing," Ellis said with a shrug. "It's a bit more since …" He took one hand off Cornelius' shoulder, gesturing to the trees around them. "But that makes it more exciting, doesn't it? Worth the coin, most men would say. Two for my mouth; one and a half for my hand."

He could have charged more, taken advantage of the naïvety that beamed from Cornelius like a ray of light cutting through the treetops, but he felt a strange sort of thrill to have this pretty creature trembling in front of him. He leaned in, pressed his mouth very nearly to the boy's neck, close enough that he knew he could feel his breath. 

"It's a bit extra if you want to kiss me." Pulling back, he smiled at Cornelius as softly as he knew how. It was a heady mixture of fear and youthful enthusiasm that looked back at him.

"I don't know if …" He trailed off so beautifully that Ellis nearly took pity on him.

"I'll tell you what," he said. He put two fingers under Cornelius' chin, tipped it up so he could meet his wide eyes. "I'll give you a kiss before you go. As a gift, to take with you to the Arctic."

The boy shuddered so violently that Ellis nearly thought his job was done right there, without even having unfastened his trousers. He said something so quietly Ellis couldn't quite hear, but it may have been _Thank you_.

Ellis took a step forward, not gentle in shoving his knee between Cornelius' thighs. He made such beautiful noises, every one like it was shocked out of him, that it was both easy to believe he had never done this before and impossible to think that no one had ever taken him.

"That's good," Ellis said. He leaned in, pressed his nose to Cornelius' neck and reached between them to unfasten his fly. "You're doing so well."

It almost seemed strange, that they were of a height; most of the men Ellis touched like this were so much larger, looming over him as he sank to his knees in the dirt — or even as they sank to their own. Strong and broad and nothing like this delicate creature he took in hand now. 

"Shh," he whispered, more sound than word into Cornelius' neck as the boy fairly shook against him. "That's alright, then. Tell me — tell me of your expedition. What is the trip going to be like? Just let me touch you, that's right. You don't have to do anything."

With halting breaths, the occasional silence, air sucked in sharply through his teeth, Cornelius spoke: the base work he would do on a beautiful ship, _Terror_ spoken as if it were a word that meant glory. Neatly pressed uniforms and rough living, harsh command and the freedom of the open sea. The chill of the arctic, like nothing Ellis had ever imagined, like nothing _Cornelius_ had ever imagined, a sparse and desolate splendor.

"And the other end," Cornelius said, with another shuddering exhale. The tale he'd spun had nearly distracted him from the way Ellis jerked his cock, as gentle as he could with only his own spit and the fluids leaking from the boy's tip to smooth the way. "After we cross the Passage — once we _find_ the Passage — the Pacific Ocean. I hear it's beautiful … more beautiful than anything I've ever seen."

_Looked in a mirror, haven't you?_ almost slipped past Ellis' lips, but there was no need for flattery anymore. Not with the way Cornelius tapered off into an aching, whimpering silence, not with the way Ellis could feel him pulsing in his grip, clearly approaching his crisis

"There you are," he said instead, mouth still against Cornelius' neck. His tongue pushed so lightly against the boy's neck as he said it: that was enough, it seemed, to bring him to his end. There was a certain gratification to hearing his own name gasped out as Cornelius sagged against him.

Ellis shook his hand, slick with the boy's seed, out into the grass, and imagined for a moment that perhaps flowers would grow there, the palest sunshine yellow with rich brown eyes at their center.

"There you go," he said again, still soft. When Cornelius' breath began to even out, Ellis pulled their forms apart, and even managed a bit of a bashful tone as he asked, "You don't have a spare handkerchief, do you?"

Cornelius, improbably, flushed. "Oh!" he said, and fumbled the cloth from his breast pocket. "It's not a spare, but … here you are."

Ellis took it and wiped his hand clean, then ran it along the line of the boy's cock in a gesture that was less effective than for effect; indeed, Cornelius' mouth dropped slightly, his eyelashes fluttering.

"Let me wash this for you," Ellis said. He put the boy to rights, tucking him away and fastening up his fly again. "I'll bring it back to you."

He said it like a promise, and watched as Cornelius lit up at the words. The coins would come from his pocket, next — and then, with the handkerchief returned, again.

— 

The bed dipped, and Ellis blinked awake. He'd only gone to bed recently — or he thought so, at least; the moon looked a bit higher in the sky through the one dirty window, but it could be hard to tell. Charley, down to his drawers, settled in next to him, making a valiant attempt at stealing Ellis' pillow in the process.

"Don't you dare," Ellis said, and wrinkled his nose. "What in the devil's name have you got up to? You smell like old wine and piss."

There was just enough light through the window for Ellis to see the way Charley's mouth twitched, and his eyebrow, too, the way it always did before he said something he thought was very clever.

"Oh, no." Ellis said. "No. If you've brought some man's piss into my bed —" He didn't bother to finish the sentence, rolling over to put his back to Charley.

"How d'you know it's a man's piss, then?" Charley sounded far too pleased with himself. Ellis debated telling him to go wash up, but it was too late for the bedclothes now anyway. The window was propped open at least, and the old wine smell was stronger than anything else.

Charley took a breath and started talking: what he'd done, and what his girl had done, and his girl's girl, to hear the tell of it. There was a lot of dancing, and something about a dog; it would have made an exciting story, or at least an interesting one, from anyone but Charley: Ellis was too used to him, though, and the timbre of Charley's voice tilted him off to sleep.

That night, he dreamt of ice.

It was cold in the morning, too, Charley having stolen the blanket in the night and a fog thick enough to muffle the whole world outside the window having crept in through the open pane as well.

Ellis tugged at the blanket and Charley, grumbling in sleep, turned toward him

"Come on then," Ellis said, tugging at it again. Charley half-opened one eye at him and, taking in Ellis' scowl, untucked the edge of the blanket from beneath himself and held it up in invitation. With a sigh, Ellis shoved in up against him. They were face to face, and very close.

"G'morning," Charley said. Both his eyes were shut again, but they were close enough that he could tip his face toward Ellis' without needing to see it, softly bumping their foreheads together.

"Don't start that," Ellis warned. "You're foul. I won't deal with you until you've washed up."

Charley smiled, a motion slow with sleep. "You like me foul," he murmured, and with no real objection to make Ellis tilted his head until their mouths met. Charley was even more languid than usual, very nearly passive; his mouth was foul indeed, his tongue still tasting of whatever he'd gotten up to the night before, but Ellis was sure his own wasn't much better.

"Foul and insufferable," Ellis said into Charley's mouth, and swallowed down whatever reply he might have made. His cock was already pressing against Ellis' thigh, and only getting thicker the longer they kissed. "What do you want, then?"

Charley hummed, contemplative, mouthing at Ellis' jaw. "You, I suppose."

"Helpful as always." He threw a leg over Charley's, not quite pinning him but certainly making it harder to move, and Charley clearly took no exception to this if the drawn-out moan he let out was any indication.

Ellis stretched out on top of him, and a tug at his wrist was enough to get Charley to reach up and grab the headboard, unusually well-behaved. He wasn't always keen to let Ellis take charge in their encounters, but when he gave in he submitted himself fully.

"You're heavy," Charley said, but there was nothing genuine about the complaint, not the way his eyes were closed nearly to slits or the way his breath was coming out slightly labored — although that could have been the way Ellis pressed down on his chest. 

Charley was fairly slight, only a bit heavier than Ellis but taller as well, and Ellis knew — that was, he'd met Charley's girls before — that he liked someone smaller on top of him. Ellis didn't _relish_ his size, but he knew it had its advantages. He knew how to use them, to harness them when he needed to. 

His hands, for example. Smaller, also, but nothing dainty about them: not ever, and not the way they felt circled around Charley's throat, snug under his jaw, thumb putting just a hint of pressure on his windpipe. With his other hand he pushed himself up from the bed, their only points of contact his thighs straddling Charley's waist and his hand around Charley's neck. The sound Charley made was very near a whimper.

"You like that, don't you," Ellis said. There wasn't much cause for lewd talk between them, but this was an honest enough question as one could ask while knowing the answer. Charley nodded, as well as he was able. Despite the cold there was a faint sheen of sweat on his bare chest, on his brow.

Ellis tightened his hand, waited for Charley's choked-off breath before he let up. Once Charley was able to open his eyes, Ellis gripped harder again. Charley's chest heaved again; his eyes rolled back. He was hard beneath Ellis, distending his drawers enough that Ellis found himself rocking down against him without meaning to. The sound Charley made was definitely a whimper this time, and Ellis dug his thumb in deeper. 

He let up enough to let Charley think he could kiss him back, when he leaned down to brush their mouths together. He kept it light, teasing, always just out of reach whenever Charley tried to move up into it. He could feel his shoulders twitch, like he'd gone to move his hands and then thought better of it.

"You're awful," Charley said. His voice was weak, as bruised-sounding as his neck would look when Ellis finally let him go. 

He pulled back, the taunting kisses a casualty when he shifted his weight to grind his hips down against Charley's, their cocks nearly aligned. He could put pressure, like this, on every point of Charley's that would take his breath away. Charley whined, high and thready, and Ellis felt his own cock twitch; he had not realized he was so far gone himself.

"Are you close, then?" 

Charley tried to nod. Ellis could feel the cords of his throat tighten under his hand. His eyes rolled back again, fluttered breaths coming at an ever-slowing pace. Charley let go of the headboard, finally; one of his hands twitched forward as if to push at Ellis, or grab at his hands, or at least thump the mattress in some sort of signal, but at the end they both fell limp to the bed.

Ellis realized, all at once, what was happening: this was not play; this was not love, nor any facsimile of it, nor any mockery; this was a man's life in his hands, and he meant to take it.

"There you are," he said, softly, as soft as he'd say it to any man whose delicate organ he held in his hand. One of Charley's eyes shut, and then the other. Ellis felt the last strong jerk of his hips, and then the aftershocks, and then Charley laid limp beneath him.

"There you go," Ellis said again, a whisper so low he could barely hear it himself, caught in his throat. It was almost an agony to remove his hand from Charley's throat, but worth it to see the pale places where his fingers had been clenched fill with blood again, blooming into only a shadow of what they would become.

_Or would they_ , Ellis wondered. He did not know how long the circulation of blood continued once a man had died; he did not know if bruises would form. It would be a shame, he thought, if they did not. He eased himself off Charley — off what had been Charley — and laid down next to him, resting his head on his chest. 

There was no heartbeat he could discern, no breath however faint or ragged against his scalp. That was it, then: he had killed a man. In sound mind, and for what? To feel it. To see what it was like when a man stopped breathing. He had held love for Charley, of a sort, and yet — 

And yet, he loved him no less like this. He tilted his head just enough to mouth at the throat there that held no pulse, no breath: not quite a kiss, but not quite something else.

—

It should perhaps have felt strange to be amongst all these warm bodies, with Charley going cold, wrapped in a sheet in the bed they had shared. There had been a stain where the cloth covered the join of his legs but not where it dipped to drape his neck, which Ellis had found nearly off-putting. He could not deny that there was something fitting about the only thing leaving Charley, in his end, being his seed; still, it did not sit right with him. He found himself wishing there had been blood.

There was blood, certainly, pulsing through the veins of the men who surrounded him. Cornelius was nowhere to be seen — and for the best; Ellis had hardly thought, had hardly been in any state to think, to bring his handkerchief. He had pulled the sheet up over Charley and dressed in near silence, only the faint sounds from the street below drifting up to fill the room they had shared.

He would have to leave that place, surely. A matter of practicality if nothing else: the landlady might spare a bit of pity for him, abandoned without word or warning by the man who had been helping to pay her, but not for long, and the fact remained that he could not afford to let it on his own.

It was perhaps strange, that he had felt no remorse during the act. He felt no remorse now, but he found he could not take his mind off it. He barely noticed the man who took the stool next to him, not when he sat down heavily enough that Ellis could feel it; not when he sighed with an air of such defeat that Ellis could feel that, also.

It may not have been deliberate when the man cleared his throat, but it reminded Ellis of his place and of his purpose, and he finally dragged his eyes to his companion. He thought perhaps there was a smile on his own face, but he could not be sure.

The man, when Ellis looked at him, was heavy-set, although perhaps not so much as he seemed; the dejected slump of his shoulders would do no man any favors. What Ellis could see of his face was just as hangdog as the rest of him, skin pocked and lined, a ruddiness to it which suggested that, even if he had just arrived here, this was not his first drink of the day.

He straightened his posture, stretching as he did so with the dual purpose of aligning his spine and letting his knee bump into that of the man next to him, light enough that it could be accidental. Could be ignored entire, if the man wished it.

He did not, it appeared; shifting his body toward Ellis, something in his eyes that could maybe be called interest.

"Very sorry," Ellis said, in a voice that made it clear that he was not.

"'S'alright," the man said. "No harm." His voice was a rough mumble, and yet Ellis found himself nearly laughing at it: two Irishmen within a week! Not impossible, but improbable; hardly objectionable, and very nearly charming. The sturdy wool of his jacket spoke, perhaps, to a naval man as well. It almost seemed as though he'd gone and found himself a _type_.

The man raised a disbelieving eyebrow at him. "Something funny?" he said. 

"Oh, nothing." Ellis found he couldn't quite keep a smile off his face. He put a hand on the man's arm, and laughed softly when the man's expression turned from offense to outright surprise. He squeezed his forearm just once, nowhere near hard enough to hurt, but enough to make his presence felt, his intentions clear.

Normally he would wait for them to come to him, but he was feeling bold. Killing a man, it would seem, was enough to incite one to experience the wonders of the world oneself. As if Ellis had taken Charley's enthusiasm, like his breath, for his own.

"I've got —" The man stopped. He fixed his whisky with a serious look, picked up the glass and knocked the rest of it back without hesitation. His upper lip was wet with the bit of liquor that clung to it, and Ellis didn't try to hide the direction of his gaze. "I've got a room," the man said finally. 

Ellis smiled again: not the delight of before, but a long slow one he let spread across his face. A suggestive smile, well practiced. "I would love to see it," he said. "Would you care to give me the address, or …?" He let the suggestion linger, but it was rare that someone would take the other option. Fucking him in private was one thing; being seen with him on the street was quite another, and not something most were amenable to.

There was visible hesitation on the man's face before he stood up, pushing his stool roughly away from the bar. "Damn it all to hell," he said, in a voice somehow both forceful and resigned. "Let's go."

Ellis raised an eyebrow but did not pause himself before slipping off his own stool. He straightened his jacket, making a bit of a show of it in hopes of keeping the man's eyes on his body. "Lead the way."

It was bright when they walked outside, nearly startlingly so after the dim of the pub, but a brisk chill in the air. Ellis nearly wished he could tuck himself closer to the man and the warmth of his coat — he certainly did not seem bothered by the cold — but that would be far too forward, much too far. He contented himself with keeping pace with the man's longer strides.

To the aim of discretion, they didn't take a direct route there; Ellis knew these streets well, and knew when one's steps were being retraced the next road over. The boarding house they arrived at looked not dissimilar from Ellis' own, if a fair bit nicer. 

They were nearly at the door when the man hesitated for the first time, looking at Ellis with a new set of eyes. After a moment he dug into his pocket, produced a key and a coin nand held them out. "Third floor, toward the rear," he said gruffly, and Ellis nodded, fingers tight around the metal.

"I'll come up shortly," Ellis said. The man nodded back, and Ellis watched as he walked not into the building they'd stopped in front of, but the one past it. Watched as he fumbled with the front door before heading into a well-lit hallway, and watched as the door shut behind him. Contemplated briefly pocketing the key and coming back later, when the man would be asleep or gone — but a thruppence was not much, and this was surely an easier route to his pay, with less risk. For himself, at any rate.

So he took a walk. Not a long one: up the road, and back down again on the other side; it would hardly fool anyone who was watching, but anyone who might would also know better than to pay it any mind.

The front door opened just as smoothly for him as it had for the man ahead, and it took no time at all to find the stairs, barely more to climb them. The stairwell was more dimly-lit than the hall downstairs had been, and the third-floor hall no better. The hallway was deserted except for the man at the end of the hall, who watched him approach with an expectant look that bordered on lustful but never quite crossed that boundary.

Ellis nodded to him as he approached. The man nodded back, and held out his hand; the key slipped into it. It was only then it struck him how unnecessary the key had been, if the man was simply waiting for him here. Perhaps a test, then, and one he had passed. He couldn't help but wonder what his reward would be.

The room was small but well appointed: there was a well-worn trunk pushed against one wall, a neatly made bed, heavy curtains covering the one window; the man shoved them open enough to let through a bit of light, but still stooped to light a candle on the low desk. It glinted off the gold braid affixed to the jacket hung neatly over the desk chair: Ellis didn't know a damn thing about epaulets, but these looked impressive.

Atop the desk itself was a pen and a pot of ink; some papers, something scribbled on the top sheet Ellis couldn't make out in the low light; a small stack of leather-bound books. A bottle of something amber and a glass with water clinging to the rim, like it had been hastily washed out and left to dry.

"Would you take a drink?" the man said. There was something endearing about the rasp of his voice; it sounded like he was constantly on the verge of holding himself back from some greater emotion.

"If it wouldn't put you out." Ellis let a soft laugh past his lips, tilted his head slightly in a pretense of shyness. It wasn't in all likelihood necessary — they were, after all, already here. But it helped set some men at ease, as much as drink did, and this man seemed like he might need both.

The man chuckled in return, as if on reflex, before fixing Ellis with a surprisingly sharp gaze. "What are you good for?" he asked. Ellis nearly startled at the words, but they seemed more exploratory than cruel.

A smile rounded the corner of Ellis' mouth, coy again. "What are _you_ good for?"

This time when the man laughed it sounded genuine, as if he was surprised, pleased, to have his words thrown back in his face. His face crumpled quickly; though he just as swiftly set it to rights, there was no disguising the bitterness in his voice. "That's the question, isn't it." It was almost too quiet for Ellis to hear.

Ellis latched the door behind himself. It was a small room; it was a matter of only a few steps until he was next to the desk. Next to the man, his own hands coming to take the bottle he held and place it gently back on the desk. The candlelight flickered golden through it.

"We can have a drink if you want it," Ellis said. He kept his voice low, let sincerity bleed into it. "But for now, might I have your name? Mine is Ellis."

"Ellis," the man repeated. His accent transformed it into something nearly beautiful. He held a hand out. "I'm … James."

If the moment of hesitation wasn't enough to make it plain, the way it rolled off his tongue would have made it clear that he was lying. It had the sound of something said often, a familiarity and a sadness both to it. It would hardly have been the first time a man had lied to Ellis about his name, but normally if the name of a former lover left their lips — and Ellis could only assume that's what it was — it wasn't themselves they called such.

Ellis took James' outstretched hand in both his own; it was a favored moment of his, to watch a man sure of himself falter, ritual replaced with intimacy.

James only blinked, gazing at Ellis with such magnitude that he struggled to match it. It was silence for a moment, but not a disagreeable one. Ellis thought, perhaps, that while James would not see him as an equal — and indeed, if what he had guessed about his station was half correct, he wasn't nearly — he saw him, at least, as a man.

If James wanted a man, though, he seemed to need one with a soft touch, and that Ellis could provide. "What _are_ we good for, then?" he asked. Not letting go of James' hand, he took a step forward. "What do you —" 

He cut himself off, startled; James' hand was on the back of his head, fingers running through his hair, almost startlingly intimate despite the situation. That same hand cupped the back of his neck, slid down his spine, and settled on his hip to urge him closer.

"Can I have this, then?" James asked. His eyes closed; his head canted forward. Ellis took another step, and another, until their clasped hands were pressed between then. He leaned up and brushed his mouth softly over James'.

He opened his mouth: _Like that?_ he meant to say, light and teasing, but James pulled him in tightly and kissed him with a ferocity he hadn't expected. He didn't expect, either, the strength of his own reactions, the sincerity with which he moaned into James' mouth when the man nearly hauled him off his feet. Ellis was not so delicate as some men might perceive him; it was not uncommon for men to try and _claim_ him; yet somehow he had not expected it from James. He had seemed the sort dragged down by drink, not invigorated by it, but —

Ellis felt himself gasp as James picked him up, hands groping at his arse as he wrapped his arms around James' neck, a leg around his waist, James still attacking his mouth with a practiced yet almost feral energy.

It wasn't a gasp so much as the breath being forced out of him when he was dropped to the bed. It was only then, at the sight of Ellis sprawled across his bed, that James seemed to pause. He looked as if he meant to say something but wasn't quite sure how. Ellis watched as he licked his lips, not sexual so much as a nervous tic.

Ellis arranged himself across the bed, displaying himself as best he could; this would work better, assuredly, if he were naked, but if James wanted to take his time in that department … it was no true hardship.

Even fully clothed it was evident that James was already interested in the proceedings, his cock making itself known through his trousers. The man hesitated for only a moment before shrugging his coat off and letting it drop to the floor. His waistcoat followed, hands hesitating on the buttons of his shirt for only a moment before he roughly tugged that off as well. 

It was a far more complicated costume than Ellis' own, and he watched in fascination as the pieces — and he could tell they were all well-made, well-kept, if somewhat austere in appearance — disappeared, unveiling the man before him piece by piece. And it was not a bad picture, in the end: thick around the middle, although somehow less so without his clothes than he had been with them; the hair adorning his body thin in both concentration and color; and while his arms didn't speak of strength Ellis had already experienced otherwise. 

There was nothing forced or insincere about the admiration he knew was in his eyes as they raked over James' body, and no attempt to hide the way they lingered on the man's cock. It did not yet look to be at full attention, but was already thick and red with arousal, and more than long enough to show the rest of him up. They weren't all, not nearly, but Ellis suspected this was going to be a pleasant encounter.

"Come here," he said, reaching one arm out. "I like what I see just fine; why don't you check if it's the same for you?"

It was so strange, the horrors men could do and the things that made them blush. There was a new flush to James' cheeks as he sat heavily on the bed, leaning over to unbutton Ellis' waistcoat. It was not so fine as the man's own, with not nearly as many buttons, but even that seemed to be too much time before he bent down and brought their mouths together again.

Whoever this _James_ had been, whoever had left or been left by the man atop Ellis now — it was clear he was missed something fiercely. 

Ellis worked at the buttons of his own shirt as they kissed, pushing James away only far enough and long enough to pull it over his head; he thumbed open the first button on his trousers as James watched with hungry eyes, but left it to him to do the rest. His fingers overtook Ellis' before he'd had time to move them.

James pulled Ellis' trousers off with more care than he'd removed his own, fingers grazing over the skin exposed in their wake, light enough to set Ellis to shivering. He had to shut his eyes at the soft touch to his ankles when James took off his left shoe, his sock, and then his right.

James breathed out something that sounded like "Lovely," but Ellis knew his own face, his own body; he knew its uses but only a man lacking for affection would find it more than practical. 

He pulled at James' arms, urging him back atop himself, and relished the groan he let out when their cocks aligned between them. James was heavier than Ellis, a pleasant weight upon him, but he was able to push his hips up and startle out another groan. He hooked an ankle around James' calf, keeping him close. James kissed him again, although with less urgency than before; he _was_ desperate for touch, then, already going sloppy with it.

"What do you want?" Ellis asked. He kept his voice low, spoke between kisses. "What would you do to me?"

James froze at that. He didn't go far, but he hid his face in Ellis' throat: a man used to touching the male form, but not to speaking of it, was not uncommon, but James did not turn to manhandling him, pressing him into shape for the acts that would follow. He just breathed into Ellis' neck, hot and unsteady. Ellis placed a hand on his hair, softly stroking. The hardness pressed against Ellis' stomach had not faltered, so whatever had the man so hesitant would come out eventually.

"I would have you," James said. His voice faltered. "Or, rather. I would … beseech you. To … have me. To take me … like a woman." 

Ellis kept his hand smoothing across James' scalp, which had gone slightly damp as if with sweat; anxiety, then, or the drink, as Ellis knew he did not kiss so well as to ruin a man. He kept his own breathing as even as he could, but it was not without some effort. It was not a request that had never been made of him, but it was not one made commonly, most men preferring nothing so much as to throw him over a bed or a barrel or against a wall and have their way with him. 

There was no evidence that James was insincere in his request, merely tentative, so he did not question it. He did not move, other than the hand in James' hair, waiting for James' breath to settle. Then he asked, "Have you, before?"

"Not — for many years."

From what little Ellis knew of naval life, this was unsurprising; though he did not know how old James was, it had surely been many years since he was young, fresh, for the taking.

_I will go gently then_ , Ellis thought, but corrected himself before the words passed his lips: "I will go as gentle as you'd like."

But for a sharp breath James did not reply, but he did move, lifting first his head and then his body from where it had pressed Ellis into the mattress. It took only a moment of fumbling before they had switched positions: James on his back, his eyes shut, and Ellis over him.

It was fortunate that James, for all his delicacy in removing them, had only shoved Ellis' clothes to the foot of the bed, and it was simple and swift enough for Ellis to procure the small tin of oil from the pocket of his waistcoat. He swept a finger through it, and traced that finger gently down the length of James' cock. He retraced his steps with his tongue, licking a broad stripe up him from root to tip; while James' attention had flagged somewhat it was no less impressive for the fact, nor was the long moan James let out at this slightest bit of attention.

His finger still slick, Ellis drew a shining line down the thin skin that led to the dark furl of James' arsehole; as if on instinct, or as if his body still remembered from so long ago, James pulled his legs up, feet flat to the bed, his knees braced tremblingly apart. 

James' whole body was tensed, overstrung, and Ellis leaned down to mouth at his bollocks. "Relax," he said, lips pressed to the base of James' cock. His finger still nudged against James' entrance, waiting, waiting for the moment it could slip inside. Ellis applied his mouth to James' cock once more, as soft a pressure on the head as his finger kept below. He could feel James start to thicken again under his ministrations, but his body still heaved with uneven breath.

He pulled off. "It's nothing to be afraid of," he said, as soothing as he could. "Do you think I'd hurt you?" From this vantage point, he could barely see it as James shook his head. He took the tip of his cock past his lips, and then pulled back again. "I wouldn't. You know that. You want this, don't you? Let me in."

Just the smallest additional pressure and it was if some great anxiety left James' body in a flood, a dam opening and water rushing through — and once opened, Ellis was able to slip inside. His finger pressed in, and James' breath, while still labored, began to sound more pleasured than pained.

"There you go," Ellis said. He pulled his hand back just enough to slide another finger inside along the first. "Perfect," he said, rocking his fingers in and out. "You're nearly maiden-tight. But you're no maiden, are you, James?" Save for the way James' body relaxed around him, he got no answer.

He withdrew his hand, pulling after him a barely-voiced protestation which he was able to soothe with a kiss to James' cock. It had, to some slight surprise on Ellis' part, not flagged at all as James had been breached, as some men's might have, and Ellis had a fancy that he might be able to make use of it himself, if James were not as swiftly sated. It would, he imagined, be a pleasant experience.

He retrieved his oil and slicked his fingers, coating his own cock liberally. It had not been flattery that James was maiden-tight, nor dishonesty that Ellis had no intent to hurt him. At once, though, he remembered: he _had_ hurt a man. Had killed one, only this morning. It swept over him, sudden as a wave or a summer storm, the memory of his hand on Charley's throat. The way his eyes had drifted shut.

It was his own breath that hitched, that time, his focus shifting from James' arousal to his own. He hitched one of James' ankles over his shoulder. He pressed his cock to James' entrance, and then inside. It was a smooth glide, James melting around him, and he did not go perhaps as slowly as he could have.

Below him, James was shocked nearly to stillness. His eyes were shut, his mouth a thin, bitten line. He had a gap in his teeth, Ellis only then noticed. His cock still strained, thick and red, over his soft belly, the gentle rolls of flesh. 

"Is this what you wanted? What you needed?" Ellis could not quite keep the fever from his own voice. He watched as James unclenched his teeth, lower lip blooming white and then red where his teeth had dug into it.

When James opened his mouth, his voice was hoarse. "Yes. Please, I — " He sounded as if every word cost him a great deal to say.

Ellis could not kiss him at this angle, but he fucked into him as slowly and steadily as he could manage, eyes fixed on James' face, his flushed cheeks. When at last James opened his eyes their gazes locked, and only then, with what Ellis saw there, did he let himself speed up: some heady combination of need and shame.

James was silent, to a degree that may have unnerved other men, speaking only with the intensity of his gaze and the way his hands clenched, one in the blanket and the other around Ellis' wrist where his hand pressed against the bed. His grip was nearly painful, nearly as tight as his arse was around Ellis' cock, a burning pressure he thrust into again and again.

He could feel his own completion nearing, but James did not seem half as close. He let go his grip on James' leg, but when he grasped his cock instead James let out a grunt that seemed more pain, this time, than pleasure. "Wait," he said, and then again: "Wait."

Ellis stilled his movements, his own thighs trembling, his hand still resting on the reddish curls at the base of James' cock, fingers loosely curved around it. He thought to ask if he was alright, but — perhaps best to let him come to it. James' breath was harsh and uneven. 

"Can we …" He cut himself off, sucking in another breath, and Ellis could not help but wonder what request would come this time, what he found so shameful. Something pleasant enough, he hoped. He pulled himself slowly from the slick confines of James' body; if that was not the man's intent, surely he would be corrected. But all that came from James was the sound of his breath; his eyes were half-shut and despite his efforts Ellis could not meet them.

James let go of Ellis' wrist, a slow but certain movement; not a surrender so much as a retreat as he pushed himself up on his elbows. He pulled his leg in and off Ellis' shoulder, though his bent knees still bracketed Ellis' own.

"The other way," he said finally. "Could we —"

It was not a surprising request in the end, given how much time James had spent with his eyes shut tight; they were reddened now, though Ellis could not see in this light if there were tears pricking at the corners. What may have seemed appealing to begin was, it seemed, too much after all. He ran a hand up James' calf, ankle to knee, fingers pressing lightly into the sensitive skin he found there to see if James would shiver. He did, and Ellis watched his fingers again spasm in the sheets.

He did not reply right away, merely pulled himself back further on the bed, and made a grand gesture that was not quite a bow in James' direction. "After you," he said, and was pleasantly surprised when James snorted out a laugh in return, a wry smile on his face when he finally met Ellis' eyes.

It was not entirely graceful, James turning himself onto his elbows and knees, but he looked just as fine like that if not finer, and Ellis told him so. Aloud, and also by smoothing his hands down James' side, gripping James' arse. It was flushed from the friction, his hole slightly reddened, and he told James that, too. 

"Look at you," he said. "Such a pretty picture, used up like this. But you're ready to take it like a man now, aren't you?"

James made some sound of shock in reply, but Ellis didn't pay it any mind, busy lining himself up and pushing back in. The sound James made at that was much more rewarding, a long low groan and his head dipping forward to press to the pillow. The sounds he made then, as Ellis moved within him, were more muffled but just as nice.

Ellis shifted his weight, bringing a hand up to James' cock; he was less firm than he had been in Ellis' grip but still blood-hot to the touch. Ellis could still barely fit a hand around him. James jerked forward at the touch and then back, into Ellis' grasp and shoving his arse back onto Ellis' cock. The sound Ellis made in response was louder than he would have expected, had he expected to make one at all.

He leaned in, laying his head gently on James' back. He slowed his pace, cock and hand both; the position would not allow for the same intensity, to be sure, but he would feel remiss for chasing his own pleasure and neglecting bringing James to completion.

Laid against him like this, he could feel James' breathing even, and then slow; his heart beat nearly in time with the languid pace at which Ellis pressed into him. Ellis flexed his fingers around James' cock, tugging at him more intently. It would not be the first time he had been tasked with bringing off a man who'd had a bit to drink by the time Ellis got to him, and it was unlikely to be the last. He would not consider himself to have _perfected_ , as it were, the art of bringing a man to crisis whose own body resisted it, but nor was he unpracticed in the act.

James was certainly resisting. He softened further in Ellis' grip, the rest of his body going slack as well. One leg fell to the bed; the other quivered at Ellis' side.

Ellis stopped. The lack of movement elicited no reaction. When he pulled out of James' body, the response was more a mumble than a moan; it was certainly no protest.

"Oh, James," Ellis said, a chastisement. "Oh James, James, James. Have you fallen asleep on me?" _Or under me, more like_ , he thought, but could barely bring himself to crack a smile at his own joke. While he knew it spoke more of the condition of the other man than of himself, the circumstance was not flattering.

It had done little however to dampen his own arousal; the insult he felt was more professional than physical. He could not help but that the sight of James, face down, unmoving, was compelling to him — that he could reach out and touch the small of James' back to no reaction; that he could push his cock up against the place it had so recently breached and receive barely a breath in return. James' sleep had taken him as deep, it seemed, as it had taken him suddenly.

Ellis stayed there, rocking against James' arse. He was warm there, slick with sweat, and while Ellis did not penetrate him again it would not have been difficult to do so. This, though, was perhaps better: a yielding body beneath him, unprotesting. It was rare that Ellis could take his pleasure without the imposition of another man's will.

He reached his own end soon enough, nearly before he realized it, a hot splash across James' arse and the small of his back. He fell back on his haunches and let out a long breath. 

James did not stir when Ellis unfolded himself and slid off the bed; he did not stir when Ellis leaned over his prone form to gather his own clothing, or when he put it back on. Not when he rifled through James' discarded clothes to find his billfold. And not at the scrape of the chair on the wooden floor when Ellis pulled it back to sit at James' desk.

The books were not of much interest, now that he was able to look at them: magnetism, a biography of Sir Someone-or-other, magnetism again; Ellis had never had much of a head for science. The papers, though: the start of a letter, it seemed. _My dearest James_ , in an elegant if uneven hand, and nothing below it save a spot of ink. Ellis couldn't help but smile.

He picked up the pen and dipped it into the ink: his own handwriting was unpracticed, far messier than Ja — messier than that of the man whose rooms he was now in, but he was able to make himself legible.

He stood up and pushed the chair back in neatly, and after a moment blew out the candle. It wouldn't do for the place to burn down while the man slept. Before he shut the door behind himself he cast one last look toward the man sleeping in the bed, and one last toward the desk and the message he'd penned.

_Took what I'm owed. Safest of travels. Very truly, E.C._

— 

It had been some effort, to secret Charley's body out in the night. They were not so near the river that it was fast or simple to carry him all that way, and he seemed heavier in death than he ever had in life. It was fortunate, then, that those on the streets at that hour saw only what they wanted to see — and that was little. Ellis himself saw nothing that night, whatever his eyes might have fixed on.

He talked to the landlady the next day: had Charley spoken to her? Ellis had seen hide nor hair of him in days now, and he'd been speaking of that girl more often, hinting he might marry soon. She agreed to let him stay through the week, perhaps the next if no one else asked to let the room, and with a sort of pity in her eyes didn't make him pay for the day's breakfast. "But after that," she said, and Ellis thanked her profusely before she could finish speaking.

He went upstairs. He washed what needed to be washed, and dressed, and shaved his face. He had washed Cornelius' handkerchief as promised, but he suspected the boy wouldn't mind terribly if Ellis wiped his razor dry with it. He folded the razor, and slipped both into his pocket. The boy's ship, if he remembered correctly (and he nearly always did), would be sailing soon. He took stock of himself in his shaving-mirror, met his own eyes, and smiled. 

He walked down to the pub, every winding street seeming like it was taking him toward where he was supposed to be. The light breeze off the Thames smelled fresher than it by rights ought to have. The sun had come out in force.

They hadn't set a date, but Ellis was unsurprised to find Cornelius waiting for him when he walked in, and sidled over to him. "Buy you a drink?" he said, voice pitched low, and Cornelius startled.

"Oh! Ellis." He smiled, a look nearly of relief crossing his face once he'd realized who had approached him. He raised the hand holding his ale, expression turning apologetic. "I've already —"

Ellis smiled at him, and took the glass from his hand. Cornelius, shocked to silence, let him do it. He raised the glass to his mouth, letting the beer wet his lips. He lingered, but took only a sip before handing it back. Cornelius raised it to his own lips as if to hide the look on his face.

"Foul stuff," Ellis said cheerfully. He leaned back against the wall, hips cocked just slightly, arms folded across his chest. With the same convivial tone he added, "I've got something that tastes better, if you'd like."

Cornelius, next to him, swallowed hard. He took a long gulp of his beer, and then another, before squaring his shoulders. His voice was almost even as he said, "I _would_ like. I would like that … indeed." He put his glass down on the table, and fixed Ellis with a surprisingly forward look.

Ellis plucked the handkerchief from his pocket and, with a smile and a flick of his wrist, tucked it neatly into Cornelius'. "Let's go then," he said. Like he had the first time, he walked out without a backward glance; like before, Cornelius followed. As Ellis crossed the road he heard a carriage pass behind him and it was only then he glanced over his shoulder to see Cornelius standing on the other side, staring at him. Ellis met his eyes for just a moment, then turned down the path into the wood.

It wasn't long before Cornelius caught up with him. Ellis slowed, let Cornelius keep pace with him as they headed deeper. His eyes flicked over only once but that was enough; Cornelius met them, and though his eyes were nearly black in the dim, there was a fire in them that told Ellis he should let the boy have at least the appearance of control.

He paused, just a moment, but that was all it took before Cornelius was on him, clutching the lapels of Ellis' jacket right there on the path. Ellis laughed softly, no mocking edge, and brought his hands up to cover Cornelius', removing them gently. "Come on," he said softly, and tilted his head toward the trees, further off the path. 

It was darker still there, but the fervor hadn't left Cornelius' eyes. "I don't care about money," he said, earnest shading into desperate. "I'm off to the Arctic soon, I won't need it when I'm there, and — I hear they're savages, on the islands, they trade in seashells, and I'll be paid handsomely when I —"

Ellis put a hand to Cornelius' mouth, shushing him. Had he done that to Charley he'd have gotten his hand licked, he realized suddenly, a flash of … not remorse, but perhaps a sort of sentiment.

"What do you want, Cornelius?"

It wasn't unkind, the way he said it, but it did serve its purpose of stopping the boy in his tracks. Ellis pulled his hand away and, with it gone, Cornelius' tongue darted out to wet his lips.

"I want … can I touch you, Ellis. I want to know what it's like, before I'm — before I've gone. I don't know what … what …" He sounded nearer to misery than hope as he trailed off; if his eyes still blazed with desire, they were cast too low for Ellis to see it. 

Ellis vacillated between annoyance and pity, but he disregarded both in favor of keeping his voice even, letting it darken slightly as if with lust as he went on. "Touch me? You'll have to tell me where, Cornelius. Do you want to fuck me? Pull me off? Do you want to suck my cock, Cornelius?" 

From the way the boy startled, it was clear Ellis had hit upon exactly his desire. He watched as Cornelius dragged his eyes from the dirt up to his face, lingering unsubtly around his middle. Ellis reached out again, a hand hovering over Cornelius' cheek before he settled it on his shoulder. "That's what you want, isn't it?" Cornelius nodded.

Ellis took a step back with casual affect, putting his hands in his pockets and raking his eyes over Cornelius in return, smiling as if he liked what he saw. "Have you done this before?" he asked, although he knew the answer, and when Cornelius mutely shook his head he smiled wider.

"It's not so difficult," he promised. "You might find you like it."

Cornelius cleared his throat, a nervous cough. "I — I have already supposed that I … might." 

_You look born to it_ , Ellis thought, but didn't say; it would hardly help to soothe the boy's nerves. "When do you set sail?" he asked instead.

Cornelius blinked, visibly calming as he set his mind to another task. "Next Monday," he said. "Strange to think that it's so soon, after I've been waiting for so long."

"You're excited, aren't you?" Ellis took a hand out of his pockets, unbuttoning one side of his trousers and letting the flap hang suggestively. "It will be beautiful, won't it? Cold, but — strangely lovely. And the company you'll keep … all those sailors." He smirked.

Cornelius flushed at that. 

"Come here," Ellis said. Cornelius took a step forward, then another, until Ellis could reach out and take his hand, place it against the front of his trousers, let the boy feel him growing hard under his touch. "It's nothing to be afraid of," he said quietly.

Cornelius' eyes flew up to his face, and then set himself to unfastening Ellis' trousers the rest of the way. Ellis hooked his thumbs into his waistband and pushed them down, pulling his drawers with them, until they were trapped on his thighs. It was cooler in the woods, and with his arse hanging out, but he suspected it would be more than worth it soon.

Cornelius wrapped a hand around his cock, not pulling at it but merely testing, feeling out the length, the girth, the weight of it. It may well, Ellis thought, have been the first cock in his hand other than his own. In a strange way, he felt privileged that it was his.

He put a hand on Cornelius' head, cradling the back of his skull, and that was all it took for the boy to go to his knees. His hair was surprisingly soft where Ellis' fingers carded through it, lighter and finer than he would have guessed just to look at it. His face was warm where his cheek rested on Ellis' thigh, his breath warm over his balls.

Ellis' other hand came to grip the base of his own cock, tugging at it lightly; it did not need much help in getting stiff, with this tremulous boy at his feet, but he thought to speed it along. "It's nothing to be afraid of," he said again. He kept his voice low, but it seemed Cornelius heard him clearly, sitting back and replacing Ellis' hand with his own. 

His tongue flicked lightly at the head of Ellis' cock, nearly too soft to feel. Ellis made what he hoped was an encouraging sound in response, and resisted the urge to pull Cornelius' face forward. The boy didn't know what he was doing; in all likelihood it would be pleasant for neither of them.

"A little more," he said. "You can take it — ah! Yes, like that." Cornelius had at last taken the head of his cock into his mouth; it was an artless suction, but it felt no less good for that. The boy was already drooling a little, messy. His teeth scraped lightly across the top of Ellis' cock: not enough to hurt, at least not for someone who didn't mind a bit of pain, but it _was_ bad manners. 

"Mind your teeth, boy." He hadn't meant it to be a command but it came out like one nonetheless, and Cornelius responded to it beautifully, his shoulders straightening, and not a hint of teeth as he took Ellis deeper. Only a sort of whimper that Ellis felt in his cock, that reverberated straight up his spine. 

Was that, he wondered, why the boy had chosen a life at sea? Did he dream of being surrounded by men far more knowing than him; most of them older; many of them, surely, eager to put a pretty young thing on his knees? Was this _practice_? Ellis' breath caught in his throat, picturing a line of leaking cocks waiting to use this inexperienced mouth. His hand tightened in Cornelius' hair.

It wasn't jealousy that he felt, not precisely. But there was a sort of pride he could not help but take in being someone's first. Not an ownership, not that, but … he was a bit of a discoverer himself, wasn't he, marking uncharted land? The thought made him smile. And then he thought something else.

His hand tightened in Cornelius' hair, urging him forward. With his other hand he reached into his pocket.

Cornelius swallowed around his cock, and then harder; Ellis could feel his throat spasm. Still gripping his hair firmly, Ellis pulled him back, and then off. "Breathe," he said, almost laughing. "Don't forget to breathe."

Ellis let his hair go and Cornelius swayed slightly before he was able to right himself. He still swallowed convulsively, his hand still wrapped around the base of Ellis' cock, mouth still close enough to tease Ellis' arousal with his uneven breaths, eyelashes, wet with tears, blinking furiously. He looked lovely. Ellis told him so, his hand moving to cup the back of the boy's neck. To hold him still.

His other hand twitched in his pocket, fingers wrapping around the metal there.

The boy's eyelashes were still clumped together when his eyes widened, his lips red and plush and sore-looking when his mouth dropped open in silent shock at the feel of the razor against his neck. "You're doing so well," Ellis said again. His voice was steady, though he could feel his heart racing.

The strange thing, when it came to it, was how used he was to being _careful_ with the blade. It was almost an instinct to drag it up the line of the boy's jaw, through the pale stubble there, across his soft skin: one he had to resist. It was a different motion entirely to press it forward, but when the first drops of blood welled up around the blade, he knew he could never have meant to do anything else. 

Cornelius' skin was thin there, and Ellis kept his blade sharp; it was not long before the boy's head lolled back, no longer so firmly tethered to his neck, opening a second mouth as red and gaping as the one above it, and just as beautiful. His eyes, still wide with disbelief, were going dull. The blood bubbled up from between his lips, spilling down his chin. His shirt was lost, his waistcoat a ruin, but he still looked beautiful. Moreso.

Ellis tightened his grip on the boy's neck, guided his slack face close again. It was easy, so easy to push back into that unresisting mouth, past the teeth, across the tongue: the blood slicked the way. He pressed the handle of his razor against the boy's skull when he put his hand there, pale hair going dark with blood. A few strands, caught in the blade, fell to the ground.

If he had thought about it — if he had ever, _ever_ thought about it — he could not have imagined that a dead man's mouth on him would feel so good. But the throat still convulsed around him as he moved, blood burbling from the lips like spittle; the teeth dragged against his length but with no force behind them it only increased the sensation. And Ellis had throat-fucked a man before; he was not unaccustomed to moving a man's head for him, taking his pleasure with no concern for anyone else's.

This, though. This was a new sort of pleasure.

When his crisis came it was with an intensity he had not expected, gasping for breath, a desperate attempt to suck in air as if it was his own throat that had been slit. He nearly keeled over; it took all he had to steady himself, and he let the boy drop. He fell to the ground, a broken doll, Ellis' spend dripping from his mouth to mix with the blood there. He fancied he could see his own seed leaking out the slit throat, but there was such a mess he could not be sure.

He crouched down next to the body, his breath still uneven, his pulse still racing. He brushed the boy's blood-slick, sweat-soaked hair off of his forehead, stroked a hand across his pale cheek. 

"Beautiful," he said, too low for even himself to hear. The boy, slit nigh from ear to ear, heard nothing.

He wiped the blade of his razor on the boy's coat, There was money in the pocket of his trousers, wrapped inside a piece of paper worn at the creases, and more than Ellis would have charged him for the act. _A bonus service_ , he thought with a wry smile as he pocketed the bills. 

He made to stand up, and then remembered: though the boy would not be going to the Arctic, Ellis still owed him a kiss; he had certainly paid more than enough for it. He ducked to press a kiss to the boy's cheek, and then pulled him in, fastening his mouth to the bloody mess of Cornelius' face, tongue slipping past the unresisting lips. The boy's tongue was limp as Ellis sucked on it, his jaw lax despite Ellis' hold on it.

"You've made quite a mess of me," he said, no small amount of affection in his voice as he plucked the handkerchief back out of the boy's pocket. He wiped the blood off his cock, and then off his face as well as he could; with his coat fastened tight around him no one was likely to notice the blood splattered across his shirtfront.

Blood stained something awful; he would have to try and bleach the shirt clean. The shirt, and perhaps the handkerchief, he thought. He ran his thumb over the initials embroidered in the corner before he tucked it into his pocket: _C.H._

—

He had grown a beard, actually.

That was the funny part: a little bit of an inside joke with himself. He would never look half as sweet as the boy whose name he'd stolen, lacked his gentle lilt of an accent, knew almost nothing of his background or his profession: but he _had_ grown a beard. That much at least, he had not lied about.

He'd smiled as he said it, a brilliant grin at the puzzled officer checking his papers that hopefully would distract him from the faded bloodstain in one corner, where a bit of Cornelius Hickey had stuck to his papers. And what a boon that had been, to realize that was what had held the boy's money in place: a ticket to another life. A year on a ship — a very _cold_ year, and one in which he'd have to be more than clever enough to disguise the fact that he'd never caulked a thing in his life — but a year, and then: O'ahu. Sand and sun and a chance at a new life, his old one discarded like a coat outgrown or a skin shed. 

It had taken barely a minute for him to realize he'd have to fake more than just caulking: the other officer, the one who'd told him where to put his things and where to go, had looked — well, he'd _looked_ , for one thing, his eyes on Ellis speaking something other than the dismissiveness in his tone. Ellis knew that look and knew it well, and it was no pain to smile just as earnestly, to appeal to the man's better nature, to bat his eyelashes and say he'd never been on a ship like this. That wasn't a lie either.

"A change of pace, then?" the man had asked. Surely if someone had questioned it, he would claim the way his eyes raked over Ellis' body was in disbelief, taking stock of such a green sailor, watching the way Ellis looked around in awe.

Ellis — or Cornelius Hickey, he supposed he was now; it would take some getting used to, but he was nothing if not adaptable — smiled up at him, and kept smiling just to see the discomfort flit across his face. "A change of everything, sir."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MURDERS:
> 
> first one starts at "Charley tried to nod." and runs through the end of that section.
> 
> second one starts at "The strange thing, when it came to it, was how used he was to being _careful_ with the blade." and runs through the end of _that_ section, although you might want to read the last paragraph for ~plot reasons. (if u just wanna skip the necro, that bit starts at "Ellis tightened his grip on the boy's neck")
> 
> also look i KNOW he dumped the body in regent's canal but this whole thing is set in greenhithe bc artistic license; let me live!!!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Ourselves_. Crozier remembered, or he didn't — but when he looked at Hickey, he liked what he saw. That much was clear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, no murder this chapter! well, hickey doesn't kill anyone anyway.
> 
> chapter warnings for: canonical character death; a bit of dubcon; my whole irving situation; and, it pains me to say this, very slightly above canon-typical quantities of poop.

**January, 1847:**

It was a queer thing that unspooled in his chest, the first time he told Mr Gibson (" _Billy_ ," he'd returned, faster than Hickey might have expected) to call him Cornelius. 

It had been a long and cold year, and he'd gotten well used to being called Hickey. The _Mr_ had been more of an adjustment: He'd never been Mr Cooper, for certain, and here on this ship, making it up as he'd gone along, he was a Mister. Not a lot of respect, but some. What he was due.

 _Hickey_ was sharp; one nearly spit in saying it. At first he hadn't minded; later, he'd come to feel it fit him. Cornelius, though: he heard it still in the boy's Irish, round and gentle. It didn't settle right. Still, it was an intimacy: offering a man your name. It didn't sound as bad in Mr Gibson's voice; he pronounced it as though in a rush. Like he couldn't wait to say Hickey's name, to have his focus.

"Cornelius," Mr Gibson had repeated. They weren't touching, not quite yet, but they were sitting closer on the mess bench than they needed to. It was Mr Gibson again who'd done it, split off from his bit of the rank and file and come to sit near Hickey. No one batted an eyelash: they'd all been on board too long now to stand on much ceremony, when it came time for dinner.

He wasn't the sort of man Hickey would have looked at — not the sort of man _Ellis_ would have looked at, at any rate, accustomed as he was to men who at least thought they could break him in half and were half-inclined to do so. He wasn't even built as Charley had been, long lashes and more leg than he knew what to do with but sleekly muscled; Mr Gibson looked as if a stiff gust of sea-wind would knock him right into the ocean. It was a good thing, Hickey thought, that he spent most of his time below deck.

But _he_ had looked at _Hickey_ , and made sure Hickey had seen him looking. It wasn't much to quirk a smile back, a smile that said _we've got a secret, you and I_ ; and the smile Mr Gibson had given back had said more than that.

Hickey had smiled at him again, when he'd given Mr Gibson his name. A smile that would have looked nothing more than companionable, to anyone who hadn't known what he was looking at. "Yeah," he'd said. "I feel like we're friendly enough now, don't you?"

"Call me Billy, then," Mr Gibson had said.

It hadn't been much of a surprise when two nights later, just as Hickey was heading for his hammock, Billy had come to him for a bit of help with a loose board up by the officer's quarters, and less of a surprise when he'd been pulled into Billy's own little cabin instead. There wasn't much separating them from the passageway but a curtain was plenty more than Hickey'd had to work with before.

Billy pushed him onto his bunk; there may have been more strength in those lanky arms than Hickey had expected, but it didn't hurt that he went willingly. Billy leaned over him, one hand on the bed and the other on Hickey's shoulder for balance. It was the first time they'd touched. The second time was when Billy kissed him.

It started off nearly chaste but soon Billy was fierce with it, desperate, seeming like he was trying to crawl into Hickey through his mouth.

Hickey held onto Billy's arms when he pulled back, made clear he wasn't pulling _away_. Still there was a moment when fright darkened BIlly's eyes, before Hickey laughed, keeping it as quiet as he could. "Give a man a chance to breathe, won't you?"

"Sorry," Billy said, although he didn't sound it. "It's been —"

"A long winter, yeah," Hickey said. It had been longer than that for him: a brief tumble with a seaman just before they'd left Beechey, but the boy had lost interest (or, just as likely, been frightened off) once they were back on the ships. A pity. No need to admit that, however.

Billy fumbled with the buttons on Hickey's coat. "I've seen you," he said. "You're …"

Hickey waited out the pause, but when it seemed words had failed him he took Billy's face in both his hands and pulled him in again. He could feel his long-dormant cock begin to stir in his trousers but he ignored it. If he kept Billy to this — if he slowed him, gentled him. He could draw this out: a second meeting, a third. The taste and feel of another man's flesh, in pieces. He'd rarely had the luxury of going slow before, but this trip was already taking far longer than expected. He had time.

—

**April, 1847:**

It wasn't until he saw them walk the deck of the Terror together that Hickey realized fully the significance of Commander Fitzjames' name.

They were arguing, that much was clear: Hickey hadn't seen Captain Crozier and Fitzjames together often, those conversations generally being confined to the captain's great cabin, but it seemed they were always arguing. The thin veneer of civility that hung over their interactions was perhaps the thinnest he'd ever seen.

And what a surprise _that_ had been: to realize his dear, drunken James was _Captain Francis Crozier_. The name had meant nothing to him but a smudge on his stolen papers, until he'd first seen him. The face, he thought perhaps he was mistaken. But the voice — the quiet steel of it did nothing to erase the way that voice had shifted from misery to supplication, the way that voice had tripped over his own name.

 _His own_. Fitzjames', more like. He could not help but wonder if it had been happenstance that they'd been assigned to this voyage together, if their placement on separate ships had been kind or cruel.

There was an undeniable appeal to Fitzjames. He had a brand of self-assured cockiness that Hickey knew well, that of a man so desperate to be seen by the masses he ran the risk of being trampled by them. And he was handsome, there was no denying that; his clothes were fashionably cut and he wore them well; his hair shone as sleek as his shoes did. Handsome, and needful behind the eyes. 

Especially, Hickey thought, as he watched them walk the length of the quarterdeck, when it came to Crozier. That his hunger could be seen from such a distance seemed dangerous to a man more accustomed to discretion, but perhaps Hickey was also more accustomed than most to looking for it. He wondered which of them had called things off: if it had been bitter or merely dutiful. The sea, he had heard, was a sailor's wife.

There was a sound, distant — from Erebus, perhaps, Hickey thought. Their eyes swung aft, Captain and Commander both, and Hickey ducked behind a mast before they could see him clearly. Whatever the noise had been, it did not repeat itself; still, it seemed enough grounds for Fitzjames to justify his departure. The day was silent but he could not hear their words from where he stood, only tone: Fitzjames clipped, Crozier cold.

It was nothing at all to send a mallet spinning away from him, even less to scurry out to get it just as Fitzjames approached the gangway. He pulled himself to his feet, mallet in hand; the "Sir" that left his mouth was deferential, but he knew the considering way he looked at Fitzjames was not. From the way his eyes narrowed, thin lips pursed, Fitzjames knew it too. 

Without a word and with barely a nod to Hickey, Fitzjames walked down the gangway and started off across the ice. It was strange, Hickey thought, that he would traverse the distance unescorted. That he looked back toward the quarterdeck before he got too far: that was less strange.

Hickey gathered his things and ducked down to the lower deck before Crozier came too close. He hadn't seen any recognition in the man's eyes on the occasions they'd crossed paths, but there was something canny to him, something Hickey couldn't fully trust. 

There was no reason to think that Crozier would inform the pious Sir John of Hickey's less-than-holy activities, and coming aboard the ship under a different name was not something Crozier could hold against him; he'd in fact done the same. But then: Sir John was only the expedition leader; Crozier was captain of his own ship — of the ship Hickey sailed on. There was no reason to think he could not extract his own vengeance, should he feel called toward it. 

He would make himself useful but forgettable, part of the scenery. If Crozier knew who Hickey was — who he _had been_ — he would forget.

—

**May, 1847**

The hold was dark, but he didn't need to see Billy's mouth around his cock. He was good at it, for a man who'd demurred when asked what he'd done before, and had only gotten better in the last few months. Hickey was not a loud man by nature, not unless it suited him, but Billy had wrung more than a few gasps and whimpers from him in the moments they'd stolen together.

He was quiet now though, only a few harsh breaths and the whimpers Billy made when Hickey fisted a hand in his curls to distract from the echo of boots coming down the ladder. Billy heard them too; his eyes widened and his jaw slackened, but the grip Hickey had on his hair tightened when he tried to pull away.

"Maybe he'll pass by." Hickey's voice was barely a murmur. If it hadn't been so dark, it would likely have been easier for Billy to read his lips than to hear him. But the footfalls stopped; the only sounds now those of the ship, and the muffled noises Billy was making around his cock.

"Is someone there?" The voice was loud, insistent, not a little fearful: Lieutenant Irving, unmistakably. Hickey let Billy pull off, shushing him. Irving raised his voice. "Answer me!"

It was an interesting thing, Hickey had long thought, how desperate Irving always was for men to follow his orders. By virtue of his rank they should be doing so anyway, yet there seemed a constant undercurrent of fear to him. Fear of what, Hickey wasn't sure: but he had some ideas.

Billy stood up. Hickey hissed his name, but to no avail — Billy stumbled out from behind the chests, the proper respect in his tone as he said the Lieutenant's name.

Irving scandalized; Billy stammering out excuses. Hickey rolled his eyes and pushed himself up from where he'd been braced against the barrel. _In for a penny_ , he thought wryly, yanking his trousers back up and pushing his shirt-tails more or less back into place inside them. He didn't bother buttoning them up until he'd ambled into the lieutenant's eyeline; he didn't need to look at Irving to know Irving was looking at him.

"Have Mr Hickey see to it," Irving spit out. 

Hickey turned just as Irving put his foot on the first step, picking his pace up and fastening his last buttons as he did so. "Oh I'm here, Lieutenant," he said. Irving stilled his movement, not even turning to look at Hickey until he uttered a quiet, "Sir?"

The look on Irving's face was disdainful and frightened both as he made his ascent, and Hickey fought to keep a smile from his own.

Billy's footsteps were nearly as loud as Irving's had been, fretting his way back to pick up his jacket, as though having it _now_ gave him some sort of propriety. "He's running to inform," he said, with such distress that Hickey nearly wondered if Billy planned to turn himself in before Irving had the chance to do it for him. They'd had close calls before, but none that had made him quite so frantic.

Lieutenant Irving, though … they had time, at least. There was no way he could go to command in the state he was in; Crozier, certainly, would see what was in his eyes. Hickey was sure of that.

"No, I don't think he will." He fished a cigarette out of his pocket and propped himself up on a stack of crates, making himself comfortable. 

Billy wouldn't meet his eyes. "Cornelius, we'll be lashed."

Hickey exhaled sharply. Irving had ruined his pleasure and now Billy was determined to ruin his smoke break, too. He rolled his eyes. "If Lieutenant Irving goes to inform command," he said, unable to keep the smile off his face at just the thought, "then he'd have to tell them what it is he saw. Which means … he's gonna have to open his imagination to what _didn't_."

He looked up at Billy just quickly enough to see Billy look away. He struck a match; he lit his cigarette. "I've seen him at Sir John's Sunday Service. I've watched him _pray_." He meant to keep his tone serious, to keep it reassuring, but he couldn't stop the amusement, the _pleasure_ , from leaking into his voice any more than he could stop it spreading across his face. "That's a man afraid of chaos. He's not gonna invite more if he can help it."

When he glanced up again, Billy was still looking at the hatch through which Irving had escaped. "We can't be sure of it."

Billy was frightened. Hickey wondered what he was thinking: was he considering following Irving up the ladder? Hunting him down? And what, he wondered, would he do when he found him? What do you do, to ensure a man's silence?

"No," he said, and shrugged. When he looked at Billy this time, Billy was looking back. There was a tentative smile on his face, although not one that touched the fear in his eyes. Hickey smirked, and at the disbelieving look on Billy's face it only grew. "But there are worse things than being lashed."

Billy stared at him, and stared, and then finally coughed out a laugh. "You're awful, Cornelius. You're _incorrigible_."

Hickey shrugged again, and took another puff off his cigarette. "No sense denying it." He tilted his head up, an invitation. Billy spared a glance at the light coming in from above, but only barely, before he crossed the few steps between them. He fisted his hand in Hickey's lapel, and he leaned down.

"God help me," he said, fitting his mouth to Hickey's. It didn't seem like something that was meant to be heard.

Hickey muffled his laugh with Billy's mouth. "Someone's got to," he said, still smiling.

—

There's not much dignified about relieving oneself on a ship, that much had become clear pretty quickly; perhaps even less so when locked in the pack and unable to outpace one's output.

It was probably more good fortune than anything that Hickey hadn't had to fix the head even once. It seemed impossible that all the men had behaved themselves so long; far more likely that the duty fell to men with other skills. But Darlington had passed this one on to him — "The captain's seat," he'd said. "It's just the job for you." The _because you're a shite_ had gone unspoken.

The job itself was simple enough, at least; it was more difficult to curb his desire to have a look around Crozier's cabin. He had no doubt that Jopson would catch him at it, though, and that would be more trouble than it was worth; Hickey hadn't had much chance to encounter him, but Crozier's steward was insufferable by all accounts (by _Billy's_ accounts at least: and Hickey trusted Billy's judgement in most things, at least when it came to a man's character.)

As it stood, the worst part was the fucking dog — it had kept sniffing around, as if pitch were some sort of treat; it had finally settled across the room, but Hickey didn't trust it as far as he could throw it. Large, shaggy, dumb — he'd known plenty of men like that. None of them had been worth much.

The horrible thing barked again, and Hickey paused in his task just long enough to glare at it. "I'll caulk you next," he threatened, but it seemed unfazed. 

And secure in its station, it seemed: nearly the moment Hickey looked away, there was an unfortunate splatting sound that was rather more familiar than he would have liked. He looked back at the dog in time to see it trot out of the cabin, unbothered. Incredible how smug an animal could look when you couldn't even see its face. Hickey was very nearly impressed.

There were footsteps then, loud and getting louder, and nearly before he realized he was doing it Hickey had moved to clean up the animal's refuse, picking it up with the cloth he'd had wrapped around his hand — the only one he'd had, and useless now. 

Crozier paused in the doorway. He'd clearly come in from the ice only recently — there was an instrument of some sort in his hands, much-used and well-worn despite the care with which Crozier cleared the ice and damp off it with his own glove. Hickey wondered how many voyages the thing had been on. He wondered what else Crozier handled so carefully.

There was only confusion on his face as he regarded Hickey, who stood up hastily. He proffered the rag, and its contents. "Neptune, sir," he explained. "He relieved himself before I could alert Mr Jopson. There was no … no warning, I'm afraid."

(It was true: he might say he'd provoked it, if only he thought the beast capable of _spite_.)

Crozier glanced at — what Hickey held, but it was to Hickey himself he gestured. "Yet you take up the duty." His voice was grave enough that Hickey faltered.

"My apologies, sir." He glanced down at his rag, wrapping it around the offense. "I know better to mind my own tasks."

Crozier shut the door behind himself with a casual certainty, not seeming to mind that he'd shut Hickey in with him; the look he fixed Hickey with was equally certain. There was something to his nod, to the set of his mouth, how he barely looked away as he traversed the length of the room.

"Not at all. I meant it as a statement of gratitude, Mr Hickey."

It was a strange thing, to be complimented by your captain as you stood in his great cabin holding dogshite. "You're most welcome, Captain," Hickey said. He looked down again at the rag in his hand and crossed back to the captain's seat of ease — also, he reflected, an odd thing to be working on when praised. He was doing a good job cleaning up waste today, at least, he thought, dropping the mess where it belonged. He stared down at the rag in his hands.

"You're a Limerick man," Crozier said.

Hickey looked up at him, still holding the rag as if he could clean it through force of will. Perhaps he could get Billy to do it for him, slip it in with the officer's laundry; Darlington was more particular about these things than he should be, for a man who spent all his time covered in tar.

"Thereabouts, sir," he said. He looked up: Crozier stood in the doorway to his own cabin: Hickey could see his desk behind him, and his bed. He swallowed, rag still twisted in his hands. Crozier was not an overly tall man, but he filled the doorway he was standing in, and filled it well. His jacket fit him well, its buttons gleaming.

Crozier considered him. Hickey found himself nearly flushing, stashing the rag with the rest of his things, standing up neatly — he wasn't _wringing_ his hands, certainly, merely … wiping them off.

"But that's not what comes out of your mouth. If I hadn't read the ship's roster, I'd never have known you were Irish."

"I've lived as many years in Liverpool and Manchester as there," he replied. It wasn't until Crozier's face shifted that he realized what he'd done: there was an echo of Crozier's accent in his own voice. Of Cornelius', perhaps — a boy he hadn't thought of in so long, now, that it was nearly a shock to remember he'd existed. It was as though Crozier had called him up, a ghost from Hickey's past. It didn't even feel like a lie, somehow, to say, "I barely remember anything _but_ England."

"It must have made it easier for you." Crozier said. Hickey couldn't quite make out what it was behind his words: not sadness, exactly. Nostalgia, for the country he'd left behind? Jealousy, of Hickey's ability to slide on and off like a coat the accent that had given him so much trouble?

He'd known nothing of Crozier before they left Greenhithe — well. Nothing of Captain Crozier. He'd known something of the man. But you hear things, on ships, he'd realized; there was respect for hierarchy here, a respect that Hickey struggled not to chafe at, but not nearly enough to stop the men from gossiping. How much truth there was to the stories of Crozier being passed over for promotions, and for what reasons …

It was a sad sort of smile he painted on his face, when he looked up at Crozier again. "I learned early: those who are quickest to tally your value often do it on your spots alone."

Crozier pushed himself off from where he'd been leaning against the doorframe. He had to duck under it, just slightly; the doors were low here, most of the ceilings not much higher: it was just part of life on the sea, and one that troubled Hickey not at all. But there was something about watching Crozier move like that — he looked larger, suddenly. More imposing, despite the look in his eyes of a sadness nearly too long-held to feel. Hickey wondered, suddenly, if he were coming closer. How much closer he would come.

"You should know … The Discovery Service is not unlike the world in that regard." Crozier bent down. His uniform was well-fitted, but the tails did his arse no real favors. Hickey let himself look, for a moment, as Crozier opened a cabinet and looked inside it. 

"You've done extraordinarily well," Hickey said. The praise was genuine: this man was far more than he'd have ever taken him for, on land. "Captain of a great ship … gives the rest of us Micks hope."

Crozier, who had apparently not found what he was looking for in the cabinet, found it on the bar instead. He paused, decanter in hand, and fixed Hickey with a considering look. Hickey found himself discomposed by it; he had to fight not to recoil. Crozier was a man who wore his expressions plain, but this one Hickey could not decipher.

Perhaps, then, this was it. Perhaps Crozier knew, after all; perhaps he had not been too drunk to remember, or perhaps it had only come to him in this moment. He couldn't meet the captain's eyes. If this was to be it for him … 

Whatever Crozier saw, when he looked at Hickey, he seemed to doubt it. He looked unsure, suddenly. He looked at the bottle he held, and then turned back, inclining it in Hickey's direction. A clear offer. "Would you take a drink, Mr Hickey?"

Hickey couldn't disguise the relief on his face, in his voice. "I wouldn't put the captain out," he said. If Crozier knew — this was an invitation, surely. What kind of invitation was another question. He smiled and laughed, an invitation of his own.

Crozier chuckled in return as he filled two glasses — Hickey was not a drinking man, but it seemed a kind enough pour. Generous, the captain.

"What day of the week is it?" Crozier asked.

"It's a Wednesday, sir."

When he looked at the captain, there was cheer in his eyes and welcome in his voice to match. "To ourselves, then," Crozier said. The gravel of it didn't make Hickey shiver, nor the way he fixed his eyes on Hickey's face, but it was a near thing. He held the glass out, lowering it into Hickey's hand both more slowly and with greater solemnity than the situation would have seemed to call for. Their hands didn't touch, but Crozier's gaze was so intent that it felt as though they may have. "It's fitting."

 _Ourselves_. Crozier remembered, or he didn't — but when he looked at Hickey, he liked what he saw. That much was clear. He watched, twisting his own glass in his hand, as Crozier lifted the glass to his lips. His gaze didn't waver, eyes on Hickey's face.

Hickey eyed his own drink with a degree of trepidation that he hoped Crozier didn't notice. He drank as rarely as the company he kept let him get away with, and not in any sort of quantity when he did, and surely nothing so fine as whatever a naval captain kept in his own quarters. Although, he thought, he'd certainly seen Crozier drink far worse than this; perhaps this only served to further level them. 

He took a sip to match the captain's own. Crozier's eyes were still on him, and he hoped whatever face he was making was that of one impressed with a fine whisky, and not that of a man regretting the feel of alcohol burning down his throat. 

Whatever it was on his face, Crozier didn't seem to pay it any mind; he turned, suddenly, to his table and unfurled a map. 

"The second lead party returned last night." He didn't sound as if he were speaking to Hickey, particularly: and why would he. A man who knew nothing of maps, or of leads, or of how much longer they'd be trapped in his cold, awful place. He frowned. "No leads west."

Being a man who knew nothing on the subject at hand had never stopped him from speaking up before. "Forgive me for saying, sir, but I have my doubts we'll see leads this year."

Crozier eyed him, again intensely enough that Hickey nearly flinched from it. He turned back to the map, shaking his head, letting out a breath that was nearly a laugh. "Perhaps I would have done better to have played your game, Mr Hickey, and gulled the world." Hickey held his breath, but Crozier didn't look at him, eyes on his map. He gestured loosely with his whisky: the cabin, the ship, the world, all the things he didn't see he'd conquered.

Crozier turned to look at him, and Hickey cut his eyes away. There was something Crozier had meant by those words, something he hadn't said. Something he knew.

There was a knock on the door, but Hickey scarcely heard it. There was a smile on Crozier's face he couldn't make heads nor tails of, not out of the corner of his eye, and not when he slowly brought his gaze back to meet Crozier's. "I _applaud_ you," Crozier said. He nodded solemnly, and Hickey nodded back. 

Crozier's eyes bored into him; he felt a lick of something up his spine, a frisson. He thought, for a moment, perhaps —

Crozier turned toward the door. "Come!" he called, and it slid open. Lieutenant Irving ducked into the room. 

The captain said Irving's name, but Hickey was certain he didn't hear it: the expressions that passed over Irving's face in the blink of an eye were too numerous to name. He started to speak but Hickey caught his eye and smiled, and he stuttered to a stop. 

Hickey could not know for sure, of course, what the man was thinking, but he could guess: Hickey, sharing a drink with Captain Crozier … Hickey, who he had only very recently found engaged in what he surely considered unnatural acts. Unnatural acts which, if Hickey read the expression his face had settled into correctly, he was considering even now. He smirked. Irving swallowed. Hickey could nearly hear his heart beating from where he stood.

"I'm sorry, sir," he said. Hickey watched as his hands clenched and unclenched at his sides, as he tried to look at Crozier and could not. "The last lead party, sir … It's been sighted."

Crozier looked briefly in Hickey's direction before he swallowed down the rest of his whisky: not quite an apology at cutting their time short, but at least an acknowledgement of his existence. More, truly, than a caulker's mate could expect from his captain. Much more.

Irving, too, knew well how much more it was; the man visibly flinched as Hickey lifted his glass in his direction. If he had asked, Hickey would have said the salute was to Crozier, but he did not ask. He would not. 

Hickey barely watched as Crozier brushed past Irving and out the door, focusing instead on the nervous fidget of Irving's fingers, the way he could not bring himself to meet Hickey's eyes. Hickey kept looking until he looked back: it was a glare, certainly that he directed Hickey's way, but one with more fear than anger behind it, more torment than righteousness. He followed Crozier through the door, and Hickey watched him go.

His whisky, he realized, was still in his hand. It seemed a shame to waste it — or perhaps, rather, Crozier might think it was a shame. There was an alliance forming here, he thought. Crozier saw _something_ in him, certainly — although if it was indeed an ally, or an enemy, or a hazy memory of a thick cock driving into him, Hickey could not be sure. 

He swirled the whisky in his glass contemplatively, but no patterns formed on its surface, nothing to show him the way to the Pacific, or what was in Crozier's mind. There were no answers there.

— 

**June, 1847:**

He nearly missed the cargo being handed to him, so focused was he on the scene playing out in front of him. In front of him, and slightly above: his own Billy, standing at Lieutenant Irving's door. 

It would seem like nothing, except: the nervous edge to BIlly's stance, the way the tray he held nearly trembled, unbefitting an officer's steward. Except for the look on his face, as if afraid something would catch him doing his job. Except for the way he'd barely spoken to Hickey these past few weeks, the murmured "not now"s like a woman with a headache, the way he would touch Hickey casually but flinch when he touched back.

He watched Irving stepped hesitantly out of his cabin, his back to Hickey — as if he could sense his presence, and did not want him to see.

"May I come in, sir?" Billy's voice was quiet and the ship always loud, but Hickey heard him clearly. "I wouldn't presume to ask if it weren't important."

The AB above him nudged him with a bundle of sailcloth, and Hickey glanced away from Billy only long enough to pass it to the man below him. 

Irving glanced over his shoulder, and then again, as if afraid he had missed someone the first time. He was not looking at Hickey, but it seemed almost as though he was. "If you must," he said finally. To Billy, who followed him inside. The door slid shut behind them.

It was a queer feeling that settled in Hickey's chest — not settled, rather, but writhed there. Anger. Fear, perhaps; at least concern. There was jealousy, he knew: Billy in Irving's room, with its door that shut, a modicum of privacy amidst all these men. Would Billy reach for him, as he had for Hickey? Would he confess, in plaintive tones, the things he and Hickey had done to one another — would he beg Irving to recreate them, then and there? It was all too easy to envision Billy setting the tray down gently, Irving's tea undisturbed, in order to disturb him in other ways. Billy's hands on Irving's flies, with the practiced ease of a man who's dressed his superiors before; Irving's cock down Billy's throat.

He inhaled, and held his breath for as long as he could. Another sailcloth hit him in the shoulder, and he returned to his work.

It ate at him. He did not like it, did not like that it was a thing to think on at all — much less a thing that would consume him. That Billy was his — that Billy had _come to him_ , had _given himself willingly_ … that, he liked. That was good. The idea that Billy in return had anything of him was far less gratifying.

It was later that day when Irving approached him. Hickey saw him coming but kept to his work, not pausing until he heard the heavy footsteps stop behind him. The snow and ice crunched underfoot of all the men, but there was a hesitance to Irving's tread that marked the lieutenant clearly as he approached. Hickey turned, but did not rise.

"Lieutenant Irving," he said, voice sincere as he could make it, and hoped the pleasure he could not keep from his lips seemed equally earnest. "I was hoping we'd meet."

Irving looked startled, and then … displeased, perhaps, nearly offended, shocked again; they were not often face to face, but Hickey thought perhaps he could get used to the emotions that played rampant over the lieutenant's face when they were. Someone walked past with a ladder, calling a warning; when Irving turned to watch him go, he did not turn back.

But he did not leave. Hickey stood, brushed snow uselessly off his trousers; it came down light but unceasingly. He took just a step closer, to see if Irving would notice should he turn back. "I wanted to … thank you. For your help." He spoke plainly, words measured yet earnest. Irving still looked away, but Hickey could see the snowflakes in his eyelashes as he blinked. He fancied he could see him swallow. "For your discretion, I mean."

There was no response, so after a moment he stepped back and made as if to return to his tasks; but Irving _had_ been watching him from beneath those lashes. He began to speak as soon as he thought he was no longer being watched.

"Call it anything but help, Mr Hickey. _Please_." There was a note of desperation in his tone, and it was just as clear on his face when Hickey turned back. He watched, and tried to hide his fascination as the man took a deep breath, clearly grasping for the words. "I … exercised clemency … for a man abused by a devious seducer. That it also benefited you is a sin in itself, I'm sure." 

Irving's eyes were bright with fear; when he leaned closer, Hickey wondered if he knew he had done it. He was, Hickey thought with some wonder, attempting to intimidate him. "A … devious seducer?" Hickey repeated. He let nothing seep into his own expression, his own voice, but confusion, which was not wholly feigned: Billy had certainly never called him such a thing before. A shame, really.

For the first time, Irving looked him in the eye. His voice still did not rise above a whisper but it hardened now. He seemed, again, unaware of how close he had brought himself to Hickey. "Yes, Mr Hickey. Mr Gibson told me everything. How you … pressed him into service. Threatened to _expose_ him should he ever refuse you."

"I … pressed _him_?" His confusion then was entirely real: not just that Billy had lied so completely, but that he had told such a lie to save his own skin. He laughed, disbelieving. From the corner of his eye he saw movement above, and despite himself he turned toward it; he wondered — feared, even, that it was Billy, watching.

"You laugh?!" Though he kept his voice low, the outrage in Irving's voice was evident. When Hickey looked at him again his eyes were dark, his brow knitted, his breath perhaps more labored than the chill would have it. "Turn your wolf's ear to me now and hear, or the next piece of counsel you'll be given on the subject may come from the end of a cat o'nines."

 _Worse things than being lashed_ , he'd told Billy … but he'd never been lashed, had he? Not properly; not by someone who meant it. Not as a true punishment, only … a farce of it, by men too angry at themselves for wanting him. The truth of it — the real truth, now — was enough to make him go pale; he hoped the flush and chap from the wind and cold would disguise it.

"We are …" Irving looked him in the eye, then, more resolutely than he yet had. He kept his voice low but it was no less intense for that. His every word seemed carefully chosen, his mouth fixed in a frown, his breathing still heavy but even now. "Separated here … from the temptations of the world. At sea … a man can find spiritual benefit in the collective. It is no accident the world was reborn clean out of an ark, Mr Hickey."

At that, Hickey nearly choked, unprepared for his own laughter; the fear he'd come so near to only a moment ago was swept away: not by the hand of God but by the righteousness — indeed, the _self_ -righteousness — of Lieutenant Irving. He was hiding something beneath the piety, but only barely. 

He managed, he thought, to smother his humor into an approximation of sincerity. Whether Irving had realized or not, he could not say; the man leaned yet closer. His eyes were no less hungry, but he seemed to have a harder time fastening them on Hickey now.

"Man's worst urges can be satisfied through Christian pleasures and graces —" He paused as if to catch his breath, though it still came heavy. "Singing with friends … watercolors … study … climbing exercises."

"Climbing, sir?" Hickey had barely meant to interrupt, much less to make fun: he was only unsure where Irving intended him to climb, beyond closer to God. The rigging? The ice itself?

There was little doubt Irving had taken it as mockery, however; and there was little of forgiveness in his tone. "Your _crisis_ is an opportunity to _repair_ yourself," he spat out; indeed, Hickey suspected the spittle from Irving's chapped lips would have hit his own face had the cold not frozen it in midair. "And you are in the world's _best_ place for it."

Hickey looked away. There was no way he could look Irving in the face and not betray some semblance of … of what? He wasn't sure, himself. Of laughter, certainly, or disbelief, but beyond that: the lieutenant surely would not take kindly to any conclusion Hickey may have formed about him, any parallel he may have drawn between them. 

"Do you think so?" he asked. It was all he could manage without betraying himself.

Hickey was not, and had never been, a church-going man, and so had little to go on; still, he could not imagine a preacher — could not imagine a _prophet_ — speaking with more intensity than Irving spoke now. His voice was scarcely above a whisper, but the words were delivered as if to pierce — straight to a man's heart, or through it. Or perhaps to his soul.

"God sees you, Mr Hickey," Irving said. "Here more than anywhere."

He did not, could not, trust himself to speak, but it seemed his silent nod proved satisfying. He did not smile, did not so much as look up, until Irving's footsteps faded.

The man was a fool, he thought, a smile finally bursting through his solemn mask. A useful fool … but a fool. And what more, really, could Hickey ask for?

Billy's acquiescence, perhaps — the thought haunted him through the day. It was instinct more than choice that guided him toward Billy's room once he got back aboard the ship. He had gone to his chest long enough to stow his hat and overcoat, make some attempt at slicking back his hair, get the snow out of his beard. 

But then to Billy, straightaway, pushing back the curtain. He did not go inside: it would not be ideal if he were seen loitering there, and less so should anyone overhear their conversation; but it would be worse for Billy.

If anything, he was impressed by how long Billy let him stand there, trimming his beard, pretending Hickey wasn't waiting to speak. Their eyes met in the mirror Billy had hung on his wall. The change in Billy's posture spoke volumes, but it still fell to Hickey to say the words.

"I understand you've cleared up our association with Lieutenant Irving?" Hickey kept his voice low. The words themselves were not incriminating, but their meaning could not be missed.

Billy moved slowly, spoke slowly, with the affect of some frightened creature. "You spoke to him? Directly?"

Hickey hummed his assent, which seemed to spur Billy into action. "Christ, Cornelius," he hissed. "I'd reassured him."

"'Cornelius Hickey … is a devious seducer.'" Though he had done nothing to imitate the lieutenant's voice, it was clear before the words were out that Billy knew well who'd spoken it before. He pulled Hickey in before the sentence was halfway over, and pulled the curtain closed.

"That was your … that was your reassurance? You've got some face, you know that?" Hickey asked, though Billy's face was in that moment hidden from him.

He could barely look Hickey in the eye even as he began to speak. "We were within an ace … of getting called out in front of all the men … and whipped for it, or worse. You were right; if he weren't such an anchorite, we would have been. So just keep your foot out of it now, please, and let him forget the whole thing as he assuredly wants to." His words sped up, nearly tripping over each other, like they always did when he was anxious. 

Hickey shook his head: not denial, but something kin to sadness, and it came through also when he spoke. "And to think, you were such a good wife to me all these months." 

The words were meant to needle, to offend, but they were no less sincere for that. The time he'd spent with Billy was the longest he had spent with _anyone_ … since Charley, perhaps. And to even remember that name was a sting — more than a sting, a shock, a jolt into a past he hadn't thought of in years; when Billy said, "Oh, go to hell," Hickey nearly thought he ought to.

"We've had our beer and skittles, but your tastes are no rule for mine."

That brought Hickey fully back into the present, back into _himself_. He laughed, and Billy scowled in return. "Is that why I've seen more of your postern than your face this winter, Billy? Huh?"

His words were cruel now, his head tipped back, keeping their eyelines level; it had unnerved Billy, thrilled him, to see how much power a man a head shorter than him could hold. He knew this. Billy had told him more than once.

"Do you know what copulates on this ship?" Hickey let his eyes drop to Billy's mouth, more watching his lips form the words than listening to them. Billy noticed; he could tell. "Rats. Nesting in our rubbish, swimming in our filth. Devouring each other just to make more rats. Well _I am not a rat_."

Hickey cocked his head in a semblance of interest, and Billy nodded in a semblance of certainty. "I'm a man," he said, after too long a pause. Hickey watched him with some interest, but he lapsed into silence again.

"A delightful, God-fearing man." It was a bit of a question — a taunt, but Billy did not take the bait. Perhaps not a rat, then, after all.

"I had to choose. No one is out here for the view, Cornelius. My standing with command is more valuable than my standing with you; I know you of all people will understand that." 

Billy had meant it to cut, and Hickey could not deny that it came close — but less perhaps the implication of Billy's statement than the fact that he could speak the truth of it. That Hickey loved little and only when useful: he could not deny it. But he was a man, as well, whatever Billy might say of it.

He cut his eyes away, and nearly laughed. It was defensive; he hoped that Billy couldn't see it. There was something to the way Billy spoke: it was not a surety at all, but rather its inverse; he was a man speaking what he knew to be true, though he did not want to.

"Now if this is what I need to say, then I will say it." Billy paused only long enough for Hickey to realize what would come when he spoke again. "It's not personal but it is finished. So don't be pettish; I haven't done you down as you so think. I've just made it so we can both keep our skins."

Hickey looked at Billy again, and this time, Billy looked back. They did not quite meet eyes; this was an older dance than that. He watched as Billy watched him, the movement of his head a familiar one: Billy _wanted_ to lean in. He _wanted_ to kiss him. Hickey could feel Billy's breath on his face, could nearly hear his rapidfire heart. He tilted his head forward, just slightly; Billy leaned in, and then back.

Hickey turned away himself, and then further; he barely heard Billy's soft plea for forgiveness over the force of his own exhale. It was only a few steps to the curtain, but when he got there he paused, looking around as if for the last time.

And it was, perhaps, the last time. Billy was a useful ally, and not a half bad lay — not that they'd done much laying down. He smirked a little, just thinking about it. But Billy was hardly his only option — there were other fish in the sea, as they said, and bigger fish to fry. 

He sat down on Billy's bed, still smiling. He thought about Crozier's arse, pale and unguarded. He thought about the captain's considering face over a glass of whisky.

"You've … sketched out the ladder, but you've got me on the wrong rung. _Mr Gibson_." The last was said with emphasis, just to see if Billy flinched. 

He did, just slightly, as he turned to face Hickey, still not quite willing to meet his eyes. "What does that mean?" He was anxious. Hickey smiled.

"Captain Crozier … _served me a drink_ just the other day. Whisky." He tilted his head up, still smiling. Billy scoffed, shaking his head. In disbelief, perhaps: an unwillingness to believe Hickey could rise so far above his station. "In one of his cut glasses, in fact. He spoke to me ... as a friend."

Billy snorted, laughing. His tone was nearly mocking. "A friend?"

"Yes." Hickey smiled again, just to think on it. "He sees something in me. It could lead anywhere. _Anywhere_." He still wondered what it was Crozier had thought, that day. What it was he'd seen in Hickey, precisely; how much he remembered, how much he knew. If _anywhere_ was into the captain's bed. Into his confidence. 

"Cornelius, you …" Billy was no longer laughing; the flip to disdain was disconcerting. He had turned, finally; he was looking at Hickey, now. It felt like the first time he'd looked at him in weeks. "The captain doesn't see you at all. You can ask Mr Jopson or Mr Genge, but they will tell you …" He sighed. "He'll offer anyone a drink … if he can have one too."

Billy thumped his hand against the table, loud in the small room. He crossed to the curtain, pulling it roughly aside. A look outside — making sure the coast was clear, certainly, that no one would see Hickey as he left — and held the curtain open in a mockery of deference.

Hickey couldn't quite make out the look on his face. There was sadness there: regret, nearly. But he was steadfast in his resolve, making it quite clear that Hickey had outstayed his welcome.

He pushed himself off Billy's bed with as much gravity as he could muster, not so much as looking at Billy even as he brushed past him. He could hear the curtain pull shut behind him; it sounded nearly as final as the shutting of a door.

He thought again of Charley as he walked away: he scarcely remembered, anymore, what he had looked like. But he remembered the way Charley's eyes had gone wide and then dim as the breath had left him; he remembered the urgent flutter of Charley's throat under his hand, the useless clench and press of his jaw. He didn't remember Charley's last words, but he remembered well the way he had gasped out what was no longer Hickey's name.

—

**June, 1847:**

It was somber, the day of Sir John's funeral.

The day before had been restless: everyone on edge. 

News of the bear-creature had spread like wildfire through the ships since the return of the second lead party, but: if there was one thing Hickey had learned on this voyage, it was that sailors were superstitious. If there was another, it was that any thing one man said would be repeated by the next in more detail than he'd heard. If there were bears out there, Hickey had just hoped they could be shot and butchered. Everyone could have benefited from some fresh meat.

When it attacked the blind, though. That was different.

Hickey hadn't seen it, but he heard soon enough. They all heard soon enough. There was nothing but fear aboard either ship that night; though no one disobeyed orders, men didn't want to take their watches. You could see it in their eyes. Hickey felt it, too, the thrum of anxiety that shook the ship more than the sea ever had.

But the next day felt different.

It was a strange thing, watching men grieve for someone they'd barely known. Sir John had been what they'd set their clocks by, but not much else — at least on Terror. On Erebus perhaps he'd cut more of a figure, but on her sister ship he had seemed little more than a parade of men saluting in his wake. Hickey had never had much time for figureheads; when you're busy staying alive, doesn't matter much who's on the throne.

When he'd volunteered for watch no one had seemed much surprised. It was a skeleton crew left on Terror — although that seemed a strange term to use, in the context. Perhaps Hickey had spent too much time on a ship himself, to even worry about things like that.

There was nothing _to_ watch. The men, at a distance. Ice and snow, everywhere else. The marine on deck with him was solemn, too: he seemed too withdrawn to even acknowledge Hickey; if the bear had attacked just then, Hickey wasn't certain he'd have been any use. The air was still enough that if Hickey listened, he thought perhaps he could hear Crozier speaking.

"I'll be a minute on the seat," he said quietly. The marine barely nodded. Maybe he could hear Crozier, too; maybe he was listening.

It was even quieter on the lower deck. It was hardly noticeable, after long enough, how loud a ship was: all the men and all their duties, no sea now but still the eerie creaking of the ice. But with near everyone gone, it was unnervingly silent.

It was also no trouble to steal down to Billy's cabin. It had barely been a day since he'd been here last, but without Billy here to glare at him (Billy here to fret about them getting caught; Billy here to press him against the wall and kiss him as soon as he'd yanked shut the curtain; Billy here to push his face into the thin mattress of his bunk while Hickey thrust into him —) it felt entirely new. Foreign. He could barely recognize himself in the mirror hung on the wall, without Billy's reflection there as well.

The gloves, though. He recognized the gloves: Billy took such pride in them, smooth and clean and white. He'd touched Hickey with them, only once, wrapped around the base of his cock while he took the rest of him into his mouth; it had felt, somehow, more decadent and more illicit than anything else they'd done. Their hands were not the same size, but the glove slid on with ease.

He barely felt the light scratch of Billy's blanket as he peeled it back, nor the feel of the sheets beneath them; he could barely feel his own trousers as he pulled them down, or the tails of his coats or shirt as he pushed them out of the way. 

He looked, again, at the glove on his hand. Thought about the reverence with which Billy cared for them. It seemed, very nearly, in the still and the quiet, that he could feel the ship slowly sinking.

He pulled shut the curtain to Billy's cabin on the way out. It seemed only polite.

There was nothing of interest, really, in the officers' cabins. Even Irving's, which Hickey had secretly held hope about: there were affectionate letters, to some man long ashore, but nothing more; he left them as they were. Hodgson's held nothing of interest; Little's, a bottle of Macassar oil (he wondered if Little carefully groomed his own beard, or if he had Billy do it for him, those long fingers tracing the contours of his face) but nothing else of note.

Crozier's cabin, then. The chess board with every piece placed in its starting position; the maps rolled on the table; glasses washed and carefully placed on the sideboard. 

There was no light burning in his bed cabin, but the endless summer sunlight illuminated things well enough: the decanter near-empty; the glass full, as if Crozier hadn't had time to drain it before he had left. Or as if he knew he would need it when he returned. And between them, a hastily-folded piece of paper, heavy cream, Crozier's handwriting a familiar scratch upon it: _Sir John,_ it began. 

Hickey's eyes traced across it, entranced. Crozier … abandoning his men. Defecting. No. _Mutiny_ , that's what this was. 

But Sir John was dead. What was mutiny, with the leader gone? This was Crozier's expedition now — unless he meant to lead this rescue party, still. Who would be in charge, then: Fitzjames on Erebus, and on Terror … Hickey tried to call up a knowledge of naval hierarchy, but he'd never paid much attention. It didn't matter, really; whoever was climbing to the top of that ladder, Hickey would still be, as Billy had so succinctly driven home, on the lowest rung. 

Gunfire. Even this deep in the ship, Hickey could hear it, a salute to the fallen captain. The Terrors would be returning soon, then; and he'd been away from his position long enough. He placed the letter back on the desk. 

It was fitting, perhaps, that he would be the one to read it: a pretender, in the place of a dead man.

—

**July, 1847:**

He wondered if Billy had forgiven him. There was no doubt — none at all — that Billy had known who was responsible for … defiling his cabin, but he also didn't seem to have spoken to anyone about it. 

Not _anyone_ : Hickey caught no wary stares, hadn't heard his name whispered in the mess. He had certainly not been reprimanded by command, although he wasn't sure if this was a punishable offense. Disrespect? He'd had duty owing for less, technically: but then, Billy would have to admit the act. Might, perhaps, have to explain why. Who would he complain to, Lieutenant Irving? Irving would understand, but would never pass it along; Hickey could nearly see his embarrassed shuffle, the clench of his fist, as he tried to explain the situation to Crozier without letting on what it was _about_. It made him smile just to think about.

He was smiling around his cigarette when the man himself climbed down the hatch and found him there, leaning against the bulkhead.

"Mr Hickey," Irving snapped. Angry, obviously; irritated. But something else under it, the same low-simmering _something_ that was always in Irving's voice when he spoke to Hickey, the same _something_ that was in his eyes whenever he saw him in passing — on the deck, in a crowded room — and quickly looked away.

"Lieutenant," Hickey replied. There was nothing impertinent in his tone, but neither was there anything respectful in his posture, or his actions. There were several things Irving could have taken him to task for, in that moment, but he did nothing more than narrow his eyes and harden his voice. Whatever it was Hickey held over him: he held it firm.

"Certainly there's work you could be doing," Irving said. He looked down his nose at Hickey, but then: didn't everyone?

"Always, sir." Hickey's tone was genuine, earnest even. If he kept his eyes wide, would Irving narrow his own? (He did.) And if Hickey should duck his head just slightly, lower his eyes in a pretense of deference, and then glance up again? (Irving turned away; the light was poor and everyone's faces wind-chafed, but Hickey thought he saw his cheeks redden nonetheless.)

Irving said nothing, but he didn't move away, either. Hickey looked up through his lashes again. "Actually, sir, I'm nearly done here, and there's time before my next watch. Is there something you'd have me do until then?" He looked up again — would have been looking Irving in the eye, if only the lieutenant would have met his. "Anything at all?"

"I —" Irving was almost certainly blushing now. He still wouldn't look Hickey in the face, his gaze intent just to the side. "I am certain you know your orders, Mr Hickey."

"Oh yes," Hickey said mildly. "I'm certain so. Only looking to _help_ , sir."

"You can _help_ by getting back to work," Irving said brusquely. He looked Hickey in the eye then: finally, firmly. There was hardly any fear in them. 

Irving's footfall was heavy on the deck as he stalked away, shoulders high and tense. Hickey took another drag of his cigarette, and smiled through the smoke he breathed out into the air.

—

**August, 1847:**

It had been a long walk to Erebus. This was a thing that he had known, of course, but to know it was different than to do it. Pilkington, the marine who accompanied him on the dreadful, freezing trek, was nearly silent; he barely bothered to look Hickey in the eye the whole time, and had hardly said a thing since he'd come to fetch Hickey from Terror.

It was an absurd set of circumstances, in any case: Mr Brown too busy somehow to take up menial tasks (the ones Darlington always sent Hickey to do, so: unsurprising, really) and his own mate down with some affliction that had beset Erebus — not scurvy, Pilkington had assured him before lapsing back into silence, although he hadn't called it that; even the marines avoided calling the disease by its name, as if it were some demon too easily summoned.

Hickey thought, privately, that perhaps whatever had stricken his Erebite counterpart was a case of _I don't want to work_ ; he'd certainly suffered from it often enough himself.

"Just this way," the marine said, leading him to the great cabin.

Captain Fitzjames' seat of ease, it seemed, needed fixing. Hickey could barely hold back a laugh at that: what a life, what a career he'd chosen, cleaning up after captains when they … outdid themselves. Maybe Fitzjames would spot him a drink, then, as well. He just hoped the fucking monkey wouldn't shit on the floor.

Neither Fitzjames nor the monkey were anywhere to be seen, and thank God for that. It wasn't hard work, really; he'd mostly got the hang of caulking after all this time. Probably something Brown could have fixed in half the time, but — that's why Hickey was just an assistant, after all. 

He sat back against the bench, legs sprawled across the floor; he'd have to check if the seal was tight, but not until it had a minute to dry. He was picking at a bit of pitch stuck to his nail bed when Fitzjames walked in.

"Captain!" He scrambled to his feet perhaps a moment too late. Fitzjames fixed him with a wry expression, but not an angry one at least. 

"At ease," Fitzjames said. He pulled out a chair from the table and sank into it. Hickey shifted his weight from foot to foot, trying not to look at Fitzjames and failing. The captain was hardly the picture of respectability himself at that moment, hat tossed carelessly on the table, slouched in the chair with his long legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankle.

"Begging your pardon, Captain," Hickey said, as polite, as deferential as he could. "If it's not too bold of me … is there anything else I can do for you while I'm here? This," he cocked his head toward the seat of ease, "is still setting, so …"

Fitzjames sighed. He inclined his head toward Hickey, regarding him as if for the first time. "Mr Hickey, isn't it?"

Hickey nodded. "Yes, sir."

"From Terror. Dunn still under the weather, then?"

"Far as I know, sir."

Fitzjames sighed again, his gaze unfocused.

Hickey turned back to his task. The oakum seemed secure, but he prodded at it a little longer, unnecessary: it didn't need it, and anyway Fitzjames wasn't looking. "It's not right, sir. The way he treats you — the captain. Captain Crozier, I mean. You're of equal rank, after all, and —"

" _Mr Hickey_ ," Fitzjames snapped. "That _is_ too bold."

"Very sorry, sir." He wasn't, and he didn't sound it. He could feel Fitzjames' eyes on him, even without looking.

The last time they'd spoken — and it wasn't often Hickey had occasion to speak to anyone from Erebus, much less her captain — had been a month ago, maybe. He'd been touching up some varnish near the officer's quarters when Fitzjames had walked past him with the stiff gait of a man trying to pretend he wasn't angry. He was doing a poor job of it, for one thing — and for another, anyone anywhere near Crozier's cabin had been able to hear the shouting.

It _wasn't_ right, the way Crozier treated Fitzjames; or — it wouldn't have seemed so, at least, if Hickey gave a damn about the proper way of things. The way Fitzjames had paused on the deck, looking back at the cabin one more time … it was Crozier who'd left him and not the other way, Hickey was certain of that now.

It didn't sit right, with a man, being left. Maybe for a woman it was different; he couldn't have said. To fuck someone and walk away, that was nothing, but even a hint of anything more, and — well. He wouldn't know anything about that, either. 

"Have a pleasant trip back, Captain," he'd said mildly. 

Fitzjames had turned on his heel, greatcoat flaring behind him, a scowl fixed on his face. Hickey blinked up at him, doe-eyed and innocent, and Fitzjames' face softened. There had been something in his eyes, as he'd looked at Hickey: something appraising, speculative. Fleeting. He had offered Hickey a tight smile and kept walking without saying anything.

It was a different look Fitzjames was giving him now, when Hickey glanced over his shoulder. Fitzjames' eyes were narrowed, but there was nothing like anger in the way he stared at Hickey as he bent down, packing his things.

"It should be good, but I'd wait a bit before you use it, just to be safe," he said, still facing away. He rightened himself and walked past Fitzjames — nearer than he needed to, perhaps, but not enough to be suspicious. If he'd been any further, Fitzjames might not have even heard his quiet, "Good day, Captain."

His hand was on the door when Fitzjames called out to him. "Mr Hickey —" 

Hickey turned back to face him. "Yes, sir?"

"There is …" Fitzjames spoke slowly, every word carefully weighed before it left his mouth. "One additional thing you could do for me … if you have a moment."

Hickey wrinkled his brow, his face a knot of confusion until he was certain Fitzjames had seen it; then he smoothed it out. "A moment for the captain? Of course."

Fitzjames gestured him closer, and Hickey obeyed, stopping only a few steps away from where Fitzjames still slumped in his chair. "I trust," Fitzjames said, "that you can be discreet about this?"

"Discreet?" The pretense of confusion was unconvincing, if the look Fitzjames gave him was anything to go by. Hickey smiled then, a shameless grin, nearly rolling his eyes. "Who would I tell, sir? Crozier? He would never take my word over yours."

"No. He wouldn't." Fitzjames spoke so matter of factly that, while it was Hickey who had said it first, he nonetheless felt a shudder down his spine.

Fitzjames lifted his hand again, curling his fingers slowly inward, and Hickey moved further forward. The chair had no arms on which to brace himself, and was not nearly large enough for two, but Hickey managed to swing one of his legs smoothly over Fitzjames' own, straddling him. "What now, then?"

It was a surprise when Fitzjames reached out and started to unbutton Hickey's trousers. He pulled the placket aside just enough to fit his hand inside, hardly bothering to even untuck Hickey's shirt. His grip was firm and dry, rough on Hickey's soft cock. It had been some time since he'd been on the end of such brusque treatment, but his body remembered, thickening in Fitzjames' hand. His head tipped forward, breathing harshly into Fitzjames' face. Aside from the hand on him, there was nowhere their bodies touched.

He could feel his cock starting to leak, slick in Fitzjames' grasp, when that hand abruptly pulled away. Fitzjames shoved at him, the hand he slid to Hickey's hip the only indication that he wasn't kicking him out entirely. When he stood, this close, he seemed very tall; his face was very grave.

Fitzjames let go of Hickey's hip and moved instead to grip at his shirt collar, right over the top button. He pushed him further backward; Hickey stumbled, and Fitzjames smiled faintly at the sight of it. "Come," he said, in the tone of someone who was used to people following his orders.

He relinquished his hold on Hickey's shirt and brushed past him, heading through the door to the bed cabin. Hickey followed.

The room was — dim, in all senses of the word. The door stayed open, but what light came through was weak; though the endless Arctic summer sunlight still shone in through the windows of the great cabin, there were no such things in the bed cabin and Fitzjames did not light a lamp. The desk was bare; there was only one book on the shelves and that at an angle, as if forgotten. When Fitzjames bent him over, the sleek wooden bed rail digging into his stomach, it was into a bare mattress. There was a portrait hung over the head of it, a woman, but he couldn't make out the details under a thin layer of dust.

It was Sir John's cabin. Or — it had been. But the old man was dead; he'd been dead for months. Hickey would have taken this space for himself, surely; he'd never seen where Fitzjames slept but even if it was no worse … if he could have the Captain's berth, what would keep him from it?

"You don't sleep here," Hickey observed. His voice was conversational, but it had the intended effect: Fitzjames' hand, pressing into him. Hickey's back bowed. The bed rail dug in just below his ribs. When Fitzjames moved his hand higher, beneath his shoulder blades, Hickey felt his breath catch. Fitzjames' hand felt bigger pressed into Hickey's back, even though the wool of his jacket, than it had wrapped around his cock. He thought he felt Fizjames' own cock, could feel it hard against his arse through all their layers.

"Shut up," Fitzjames said. 

Hickey laughed. It was harder than he expected: more a series of gasps than a chuckle, and every breath he let out felt lost, irreplaceable.

Fitzjames was almost unnervingly silent behind him. He loosened his hold on Hickey: did not let him go, not nearly, but it was enough that he could breathe again. Fitzjames' hand was curled in the back of Hickey's shirt. Hickey pushed himself up on his forearms as well as he could manage.

"So," he said, tipping his head toward the portrait that hung over the head of the bed, "that's not your mother?"

Fitzjames stopped moving entirely. The entire room seemed to hold its breath, the very dust suspended in mid-air. When Fitzjames at last spoke, his voice was cold. "You overstep your station."

His hand all at once unclenched from Hickey's coat; Hickey could no longer feel Fitzjames against him.

"Sir?" he hazarded, and then with no response: "Captain?"

"Get out," Fitzjames snarled, his voice thick.

Hickey raised himself slowly off the bed. His ribs already ached; doubtless they'd feel worse the next day. He turned to look at Fitzjames, pulled so far back from him. There was no space to run in even a captain's cabin, but Fitzjames had done all he could to put distance between them. His head was down, hair hanging long enough to nearly hide his face.

"Get _out_!" It was nearly a shout this time and Hickey did not tarry. The sun seemed brighter — the _room_ seemed brighter, when Hickey stood in it alone, tucking his cock back into his trousers, setting himself to rights. His own breath was coming quickly as he gathered his things and walked, as swiftly as he could, out the door of the great cabin.

He nearly ran right into … Hickey couldn't remember his name, was unsure he'd ever _known_ his name: Fitzjames' steward, softer and kinder than his counterpart on Terror would ever be, his eyes warm even now as he put a hand on Hickey's arm to steady him.

"Are you alright?" he asked, with a concern that sounded genuine.

"I — yes." Hickey pulled himself upright. He met the man's eyes evenly. "I was fixing Captain Fitzjames' seat of ease. He might …" He trailed off, uncertain how much he should reveal: not that the steward wouldn't see, of course, and who knew what he knew about Fitzjames. But to imply that _Hickey_ had borne witness … 

The man nodded, still kind; he patted Hickey on the shoulder. "Thank you," he said, and walked through the door Hickey had just tumbled out of.

It just hadn't seemed right, Hickey thought, as he made his way to find Pilkington again, or _someone_ who could accompany him back. Hadn't seemed right at all, to see Fitzjames cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELL. that's two of three! last one is a bit shorter and also mostly done even including the edits, so it shouldn't take as long to get up, in the event that you're feeling impatient. thanks for reading, pals!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was winter now, and would be winter for some time, and there were demons on the ice. What was neatly coiled rope? What was polished silver? The tension was chiller than the air itself. It seemed it should be a hot thing, boiling, consuming; but even fear was a cold, slow death here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello!
> 
> content warnings in this one for canon-typical violence and period-typical racism, although (i think?) nothing too egregious.

**November, 1847:**

It had seemed strange, when Sir John had died, _been_ strange. Looking back, it had been only a sign of what was to come.

The bear in their camp — so near to them. It had men's teeth chattering more than the cold did. The cold, that they'd become used to: a man can get used to almost anything. Used to cold; used to sleeping in damp clothes in miserable hammocks strung nearly too close together to breathe; used to slop that barely passes for food. 

Death was harder to get used to. And _escaping_ death — that was something no man on these ships had experienced. Not quite like this. You were alive; you were dead. Not in between, like that marine down in the sick bay was. Vanished, like Strong: even that made more sense. When a man disappeared, he might as well be dead.

But this bear. This — _whatever_ it was. Things weren't right about it. And not just the deaths — everyone was on edge, the marines especially, clutching their guns like a child would clutch a toy. The sun stopped coming up.

The attempts at distraction came fast and furious; even Hickey found himself roped into a near-daily circle of card games. There was no gambling, officially, but he'd won himself a pinch or two of tobacco that way; he wasn't very good at cards, but he was _very_ good at bluffing.

Nearly everyone was in the mess when not on watch, what work there was to be done left nearly unattended: it was winter now, and would be winter for some time, and there were demons on the ice. What was neatly coiled rope? What was polished silver? The tension was chiller than the air itself. It seemed it should be a hot thing, boiling, consuming; but even fear was a cold, slow death here.

More than the cards, the game to play was _observation_ — Hickey didn't know how it would come in useful, quite yet, but it was unlikely the situation would get better. No leads till summer, if then, and summer very far away. And if things got worse: a man would need allies. 

The marine at the table behind him spoke in low and angry tones: less low as he went on; more angry. Hickey spared a glance behind himself: Sergeant Tozer. Hickey'd had his eye on him when they'd all first come aboard; he wasn't as obvious as some of the others, and the marines kept to themselves, but. Something about him spoke to … Hickey's particular interests. Maybe it was just that Tozer more closely resembled the men he was used to — had been used to, before this. A bit rough and tumble, broad enough to muscle a man against a wall and keep him there. 

It might have been a bit of wishful thinking, to be thinking on it again, after … after Billy. He was angry, though, that Sergeant Tozer. Ready to run a man against the wall, or worse, from the sounds of it.

"No man here knows but us," he was saying. "Now: we did not _ask_ to be here. Do we harp on about it? No. We get no bonus pay. Yet we step up to tangle with that thing on the ice. First in line — and first cut down."

Hickey tapped his cards against the table. Listening: half to the game, but half to the growing discontent of the marines. Or — of the marine; the rest were silent, hardly even murmuring their assent. Tozer was, he thought, the highest rank amongst them. Maybe it was respect; maybe he had been the closest to the man with his skull knocked half-off. Maybe the rest of them were too fearful to be angry.

He was still thinking about it when he was called to his watch. 

It was nearly too cold to be frightened, up on deck. Only: this was a _watch_ , now, the way it hadn't seemed before. Watching for that bear-creature, too large to be afraid of humans, too merciless to even eat them. Was it playing with its food, Hickey wondered. Like a cat, dropping its prey at the feet of the rest of them. Could it smell fear? He held his own rifle a little tighter, just thinking of it. And might as well keep it close; he barely knew how to use the thing. He'd do just as well trying to bludgeon the bear to death.

Hickey paced — it was pacing, he knew, _nervous_ pacing, much as he might be reluctant to admit it. He could call it keeping his heat up, could call it _patrolling_ , but no one would believe him; neither, though, would anyone blame him.

Nothing but white, out there. White for ground, white for sky, white coming down; and all of it darker than any white should be. He didn't know how anyone, any _thing_ could live out there. How could the bear? How could the _natives_? He shivered again. It was cold.

It snowed nearly as hard under the tarp as outside it, and there was no difference to the light. Thinking to take a respite under it was a fool's errand — not worth the smoke break, even if there weren't the risk of getting in trouble for it.

When he turned back, there was a man there. Standing … right where he had been. He squinted into the snow, taking a hesitant step forward. _Wilson?_ he thought, and _Crispe?_ , but the names stuck in his throat. There was something unnatural about the way the man was standing. Leaning really, head over the side like he was sick or there was something he saw down on the ice. If it had to be one of those, Hickey hoped it was the former.

"Who's that?" he called out, fear at last forcing the words from his mouth. The man (the _man_ , he assured himself) didn't move, didn't even flinch; his posture seemed stranger the closer Hickey came, his knees … buckled (or worse). Whoever it was wasn't wearing a wig nor hat, and didn't seem to mind the wind. And — it was the snow in his own eyes, surely, that made Hickey think the man's coat (his _coat_ ) was torn to shreds. He reached out, clasped the man on the shoulder. 

He fell — the man fell. _Strong_ , Hickey thought, and then, inanely: _It's his birthday._ He fell again: it took a moment longer for the bottom half to hit the deck.

Hickey thought he saw something move on the ice. It was — nothing, surely. The snow; the afterimage of the dead man hitting the floor ( _in pieces_ , he thought; he'd never cut a man in half). He tore his eyes away from where Strong's waist had been, his insides too frozen to even spill out from his body — there was something out there. There was. Something.

There was something, and it was looking back. The face of a monster, the body of a bear. It didn't walk like a man, but it looked him in the eye like one. Hickey should have been terrified. He knew — he knew this was a horror, in front of him, something unnatural lumbering away into the endless nothing surrounding the ship. But it had seen something in him: something fearsome, something unnatural. Something kindred.

There was shouting behind him. Hickey barely noticed the snow in his eyes.

"Alert command!" someone was shouting, and Hickey turned. He felt awake, now. He barely kept himself from grasping Sergeant Tozer's crossbelt — because it was Tozer shouting, Tozer that Hickey rushed to, that he spoke to with as much urgency as he could muster: "The Esquimaux girl. They said you spotted her camp from the last sledge party."

"What of it?" There was no suspicion in Tozer's voice — only a dull confusion, a sort of shock maybe — as he nodded.

Hickey caught his eyes and held them. "Tell me where you found it," he said, enunciating each word as clearly as he could. He would not ask Tozer to come with him, but there would be no confusion here; there wasn't time for that. " _Exactly_ where you found it."

—

Hartnell was first, and took no convincing. 

"There's nothing right about her," he'd said, before Hickey had even finished his sentence. "You could tell, just by looking at her, that …" He never finished the sentence, but he didn't have to. That was plenty. Manson was quick to volunteer after that, but he'd wanted a gun. Armitage had barely asked why before he was arming himself as well.

It was a long walk, the snow slowing everything down and none of them having an easy time with the directions passed along from Tozer; Hartnell was the best navigator amongst them, but it was bad weather for it. And all of them, despite themselves, were tentative: a white bear would not be easy to spot in a squall, especially if it was … no one dared to say it, but the whole group was hushed by something beyond the weather.

A snow house was hard to see in the snow, too. It was Armitage who saw it first, Hartnell right behind him. They didn't call out, but from the way they froze at the top of the ridge it was evident they'd seen _something_. There shouldn't have been enough light in the sky for Hickey to have seen the fear that shone in Armitage's eyes as he turned back, but he saw it anyway.

Something thrummed in his veins as he climbed the ridge. It should have been fear that filled him, too, but it wasn't; it was something darker. More primal. He could _sense_ it, the bear-creature. He couldn't see it, even as he crested the ridge, but he knew … somehow. He knew that it was there.

He could hardly see the snow house, either; white on white, and then a figure in white and grey. It was furred, he could see that from here, and slowly it rose to its feet — _she_ rose to _her_ feet. It was the Esquimaux girl after all, and not anything (anyone) else.

"There she is," Manson whispered, and Hickey started; he hadn't even heard him climbing up. His voice seemed loud but not loud enough to disturb the scene below; though it seemed like every noise should echo through this wasteland, even across the distance between them, but if the girl heard it she made no sign of it.

It was them who heard her first: a deliberate scrape of something (some tool she carried? Hickey couldn't see) against the ice, and then a sort of … singing. It was high and throaty all at once, somehow; nearly chanting at times and impossibly drawn-out notes at others; and if there were words to it they were like no words he'd ever heard. From the corner of his eye he could see Hartnell and Armitage exchange a glance; he could see Armitage shoulder his gun.

And then it was there. He hadn't seen it coming: it had appeared, near the girl and getting nearer. Its gait was unnerving; more unnerving still when it raised its head. The singing stopped. The girl reached a hand out — placating? Pleading? She held out the other, and the thing rose to its feet. Not its full height, even from here he could tell, but it was still nearly twice as tall as the girl. Behind him he could hear Manson gasp.

It ducked its head, nearly to her hands, and she sang again, something short and guttural. It sank back to all fours and then turned its awful head toward the ridge: not fully, but that was all the more unnatural, that it should just — glance at them. It turned away, and then was gone. White on white on white, into the snow. 

The girl stared after it, her back to them. She did not move.

" _Go_ ," Hickey hissed, and then again: " _Go_!"

They went: Manson and Armitage first, with the guns; Hartnell after them, with the rope. 

It wasn't long before she saw them. Heard them, perhaps, the crunch of the snow under their boots surely louder the closer they got. She didn't run, or even hide inside her snow house; she didn't call the bear back. She stood there, and she watched them. As they neared, Hickey could see her eyes were narrowed nearly to slits.

The rest of the men stopped a few yards back, but Hickey moved forward. He held his hands out, palms forward: empty, unthreatening. Peaceful. "We're not here to hurt you," he said, and she replied something in rapid-fire Esquimaux. Even if he'd spoken the language, it would have been too fast to understand.

"We've just got some questions." Hickey spoke slowly. He kept his eyes wide, his footsteps slow and steady. He didn't dare look at Hartnell but he nodded his head toward the girl, and heard him move. "That's all. Just some questions for you."

She spoke again, words still short and sharp. The look in her eyes needed no translation: suspicion, and then disdain. Hickey nearly laughed at it — that this girl in a house made of _snow_ would think less of _him_!

Still, if he kept looking at her, she would keep looking at him, even through her narrowed gaze. "That's all," he said again. Hartnell was behind her: he grabbed one of her wrists, and then the other, and bound them behind her back. She gasped, her posture tightening, but said nothing.

"Just some questions," Hickey said again. He expected her to yell at him in her wild tongue, but she remained quiet. "Will you come with us?"

"Hasn't got much of a choice, has she?" Manson asked. He laughed at his own joke, but it was a quiet thing, and cut short. 

Hickey tipped his head behind himself: back toward the ridge, and back toward the ship. Hartnell shuffled her forward; Armitage rushed to him, gun at the ready, but she was unprotesting. Her steps were slow but measured. Hickey took the lead, but he could feel her eyes on him the whole walk back.

—

It was madness, when they returned.

No one wanted a woman on the ship; no one wanted _this woman_ on the ship, foreign and silent and fixing them all with an unnerving gaze: she seemed more imprisoner than imprisoned, and everyone felt it. Everyone knew she had the bear-thing in her thrall. No one knew if it was coming.

"We just have some questions for you," Hickey said to her again. "We only want answers."

She said nothing, just glared back at him. She didn't understand him, _couldn't_ understand him, any more than he could have understood her if she'd deigned to speak to him. He kept his voice low; she probably couldn't even hear him over the clamor. 

The shouting, the shoving, as everyone pushed under the tarps. Hickey stood fast, not minding it — not minding anything but the girl. She was scared, he could tell, and who could blame her: but he'd hoped, he realized, that she wouldn't be. It was a calm fear, not screaming, not crying, just an acceptance of her fate; even if she couldn't understand their words, there was no mistaking the tone. The intentions. You can tell when someone wants you dead in any language.

But he'd hoped … he didn't know what he'd hoped. Not for her to bring the bear upon them. Even he couldn't wish for that. But for her to seem like she could, perhaps, that she had no reason to be afraid; for him to know, to _know_ , that she had it in her control.

Still: he kept looking. Watching the curve of her neck, the way the furs she wrapped herself in anchored her to the ice that trapped them as well as Manson's hand on her shoulder anchored her to the ship. He spoke to the men, calmly even as they shoved at him, even as they had to be held back from her; he told them his story. He kept his eyes fixed on the girl.

A gun fired. The shouting stopped.

"Everyone on their knees _right now_!" Crozier's voice was louder than Hickey had ever heard it; angrier; more Irish, as well, as though his fury had brought out something primal in him, something that didn't care for pretense or conformity or any respect not born of fear. He stalked forward, his lieutenants following steps behind like faithful dogs. They groveled like dogs, as well. 

"There will be no violence towards this woman, without charges brought and _well proved_. I will not tolerate hysteria." There was despite his words a hint of hysteria in Crozier's voice, fury evident but restrained. Though Crozier had not been looking at him, eyes roving over the crowd of cowering men, Hickey nonetheless felt the loss of his gaze when he turned to address the marines.

"Who is responsible for this?" Crozier growled. Hickey looked around: none of his men would meet his eyes. Crozier repeated himself, but louder, and Hickey got to his feet.

"I am, sir," he said. The look Crozier fixed him with was inscrutable: furious, of course, but there was no surprise there. Perhaps, Hickey thought, a hint of … not pride, not admiration, but something like it. Crozier _saw_ him, he knew this, saw him for … not who he was, not quite. But saw him, saw in him, something he liked.

(He thought, again, of Crozier panting and pleading beneath him, the memory well-worn by now, faded, patched over. He averted his eyes, just slightly, despite himself: what did he care if Crozier saw the vision passing over his eyes; what did he care if Crozier remembered it too.)

Hartnell rose, and then Manson. Hickey flicked his eyes toward Armitage, but he didn't move except to bow his head. Hickey looked, again, at Crozier. He straightened his spine; he was used to looking up at other men. The authority in Crozier's gaze pinned him in place, and the captain walked past him.

He thought he heard Crozier say something to the girl in Esquimaux, too soft to hear; he heard, for certain, the sound of her boots as she was raised to her feet — or perhaps of Crozier's; surely the girl's boots were fur, or hide, something silent; the sound of the rope that bound her wrists coming loose was louder than it should have been in the still air. 

Crozier's voice was measured when he spoke again. "Captain Fitzjames and Mr Blanky will escort the Esquimaux woman to the Erebus, where she will be made comfortable and safe. TIll further order."

He came again to face Hickey. It was harder, this time, to meet his eyes, even as Crozier's voice lowered to almost an intimate tone. "The three of you will be questioned below immediately." Hickey nodded, and Crozier freed him then from his stare. When he spoke again, it was to everyone else: "The rest of the men will disperse … to holystone the lower deck." He looked around, and seemed satisfied in the shame, the compliance he saw there.

"That is not all for tonight," he said. There was not so much as a hint of anger in it now, lowered to a gravel that spoke of command; the confidence of a man who will be obeyed. "But it is all for now." 

He gave the word and the men shuffled out, the mood inverted completely from the righteous anger with which they had all stormed the deck. Hickey fell into place, and walked out with them. It was still snowing when he walked out from under the cover of the tarp: he'd nearly forgotten.

— 

Crozier's great cabin seemed different this time. No dog shite to clean up, but Hickey felt more hostage than welcome guest. Little was there, looking anxious in the corner, and Fitzjames — Fitzjames close at Crozier's side, sat back, derision painted on his face. He gave the impression of sneering without a sneer. 

And on Hickey's flanks: Manson, shifting from foot to foot; Hartnell, unable to raise his eyes above his shoes.

Crozier looked entirely at ease: he lounged in his chair, one forearm braced across the table in front of him. He leaned in slightly, as if Hickey were about to regale him with a tale he would like to hear. Looking that way — except for his eyes, which looked already dim with boredom. Or … impatience, perhaps.

They'd had no time to get their story straight, him and Manson and Hartnell; he had to trust that they would let him speak, let him … fill in the gaps. It didn't seem like either would complain. Or contribute, most likely.

"We knew we had to act, sir." He spoke softly; _respectfully_ , even, but with conviction. "With the creature come aboard the ship … there was no time to waste, when we knew the girl controlled it."

"Controlled it?" Fitzjames said. He cocked his head.

"Sir," Hickey said, but Fitzjames said nothing else. So Hickey fixed his eyes back on Crozier and continued: "It was — You were just out there, sir. Terrible weather, but there was no waiting, not when … not when we had an idea where she was. It didn't seem right to leave our men at risk, not when there was a chance."

Crozier shifted in his seat. He said nothing. He didn't take his eyes off Hickey; looking far more interested now.

"It was far, but — we found her, right where we thought she'd be. Hartnell here was the first to top the ridge closest to the girl's camp." He put a hand to Hartnell's back, gentle between his shoulder blades; when Hartnell started Hickey fisted his hand in the back of Hartnell's waistcoat, the thick wool clenched in his fingers for just a moment before he let go. He continued smoothly: "He ducked back down immediately. He gestured us to be still. I climbed past him and looked: we were about …" He gestured: toward the imaginary camp; toward Crozier. "... 200 yards away from the girl's snow house. That's when I saw … it was there too." 

Crozier nodded, only barely, but it was all the urging on Hickey needed; he knew, now, that they were listening. That Crozier was listening.

"The wind was blowing the snow in our eyes. For a moment I thought the girl had built two snow houses, but then the thing … sat up." He raised his hand again: out, and up.

"And can you speak to its size?" Little asked, from his spot in the corner. Hickey had nearly forgotten he was there. He didn't take his eyes off the captain.

"Three times the height of any bear we've seen," he offered. He couldn't quite be certain — the distance; the way it blended into the ice, into the night. But It had been big: unnatural big. That he knew. He paused, thinking how to describe the very nature of the beast. He turned his own head, stretching his neck one way, then the other; trying it on. "… With a different … set … to its head … its eyes …"

Fitzjames spoke again, as disbelieving as before. "You saw its _eyes_ , Mr Hickey?"

"The girl was stood nose-to-nose with it, just about. You could see its breath blowing the seal fur on her hood. And she had her hands out like so —" 

He raised his hands, more quickly than she had, and at once. He couldn't … he wasn't sure quite how to convey … the _feel_ of it, because that's what it had been. He had _sensed_ the — the magic, or the … he didn't know. He didn't believe in such things. Or he hadn't. He waved his fingers, like some sort of street magician. "Like some kinda … spell … or something. I watched to see what she meant to do, but it spooked and ran off."

"Really? Something spooked it?" Fitzjames didn't even raise his head, but Hickey was barely looking at him, either. Crozier — he looked Hickey in the eye. _He_ was listening. He was _hearing_.

"Yeah — but it wasn't us that did," he clarified. Crozier nodded, attentive. "It was when the girl tried speaking to it. So I figured she was telling it to —"

"You were told not to speculate." It was Little again, this time: angry, over-enunciating. Hickey barely noticed, barely _acknowledged_. Crozier was still listening, holding his gaze. 

"I thought _you_ should be the one deciding what happens next — not her." He nodded toward Crozier: it was him that would be making these decisions, him that would be taking Hickey's reports into account. Him that would decide … what to do with the girl, and then, maybe, with the beast. 

He leaned forward, hand on the table: it was presumptuous, nearly a little intimate, but Crozier didn't blink. Hickey took a breath. "Now — I know it wasn't by the book, but I figured we would lose our chance to grab her if we didn't act. Which is why I got Mr Manson and Mr Hartnell to go along." He gestured to each of them in turn: they hadn't spoken, but they deserved credit as well as he. 

He didn't know what would come next: could you get a promotion, for harnessing a spirit? A raise in rations, at least, surely. Fitzjames, at least, looked less than pleased at the idea: perhaps he had wanted to be the one to make the catch. Or Erebites, at least — he could hardly imagine Fitzjames leading any sort of hunting party, much less one against a demon.

Not that Hickey had done that. Not quite. But he'd certainly gotten them close.

"And what of the bear's eyes?" Little asked. Crozier's eyes darted toward him, clearly just as annoyed with the interruption.

"When it spooked and run, it looked in our direction." Though Crozier wasn't looking at him, he smiled. The captain looked deep in thought, considering, but he looked up when Hickey spoke again: "It looked at me, sir. Right at me. But it didn't rush me! It went south."

Crozier was solemn, then, but from the corner of his eye Hickey could see the beginnings of a smile on Fitzjames' face. Amusement, or — pride, perhaps. A look he had never seen from Fitzjames, at least not toward himself, nor anything close to it. It should have been a good thing, but it unsettled him.

He would need to get used to it, after what he'd tell them next. Fixing his eyes back on Crozier, the words tumbled out of his mouth faster than he meant them to. It was the smile, perhaps, making its way across his fact, that pushed the words out so swiftly. This, then — this was what would make him. "Captain Crozier, there's something I wanna say, but I hardly dare speak the words."

"Oh, _speak the words_ , Mr Hickey." Fitzjames' smile was gone now, replaced with an intensity Hickey had never seen or heard from him before: something dark, alluring. Hickey found himself again disconcerted, but he pushed through it — he had done either very little or very much to earn Fitzjames' trust, those few months ago; they did not see each other so very often, even in passing, and the low growl of his voice just now did nothing to answer the question. 

There was a degree, just very slight, of unsurety to his own laughter, but the very certainty of what he was about to say overruled it. "In all I know of this world … and of this world …" He ducked his head in a facsimile of deference, but he could still feel the smile blooming on his face. What did it matter, now, if he were edging toward insubordination: his knowledge was what mattered.

"I tell you, I …" He paused. If he was to speak the words — and he was — he would speak them correctly. "I do not believe it is an animal we battle."

Crozier slowly raised his eyes from the table. Hickey could feel his own blood rushing through his veins. This was the moment. This was — 

"Yes, Mr Hickey," Crozier said, with a sense of finality. "We know."

Fitzjames laughed — Hickey's face fell. They … they knew? How was it possible — had they interrogated the girl, already? She had gone to Erebus; there was no way — unless Crozier was so fluent in her foreign tongue that he had gotten the information from her before he'd sent her off. Unless she'd spoken to him so readily, when she'd been silent the whole walk back, the whole time she sat with men screaming in her face.

It seemed impossible. And yet: there was no doubt on Crozier's face. No satisfaction, either, in his own knowledge; and far from any sort of pride or gratitude toward Hickey.

There was almost a sadness in Crozier's voice when he spoke again. He sounded more like a father would, disappointed in his children. "The three of you had no orders to leave your posts … or the ship … or to subdue the Netsilik girl."

Hickey was not accustomed to feeling small. No man liked to be brought low — but this. This was somehow worse than any slight he'd felt before. 

"You have therefore committed several acts against the Articles: desertion, dereliction of duty, insubordination, brutality, disrespect …" His voice lowered, but was no less angry for it. He sounded less like the father of a storybook, now — and more like a real one. "I really have my pick here, don't I?"

The charge was upsetting, but … puzzling, mostly. He frowned. "Disrespect to _who_?" 

"Be _silent_ , Mr Hickey," Little said from his corner. Hickey didn't even have the chance to disregard him before Crozier began to speak.

"Twelve _lashes_ for each of you," he said. His voice was louder, then: this was not him speaking to Hickey. This was the delivery of an order. Hickey could feel Manson and Hartnell shifting on either side of him, their anxiety as palpable as their movements. Crozier continued: "To be delivered before the ship's company … by Mr Johnson as soon he's finished tying a new cat."

Crozier sighed, as though it pained him to punish them. Or, rather: as if it pained him to _have_ to punish them. As though it were an inconvenience to him, a waste of time.

"In addition, you'll be permanently on six-water," he continued. "And though you will not be dis-rated, you will have general duty owing until _I_ see fit to lift it." He looked at them again, finally, and raised his voice with finality. "What do you say, gentlemen?"

It was not a question — or it was a question that had only one answer. It was Hartnell who provided it: "Yes, sir."

"Sir." Crozier looked displeased with Little's interruption. "A full court martial is technically required when a ship is lost."

Crozier was more than displeased, then — well more. "Bring me a chart and I'll show you exactly where we are," he snapped. It was a wonder Little didn't recoil from the force of it; for all the charges he'd laid against Hickey, Crozier clearly had no time for this specific brand of protocol. 

Which made it all the more infuriating that he was _upset_ with Hickey for the efficiency he'd shown. If he had no patient for Little's particulars, why take exception to decisive action? Not to mention … 

"Disrespect to _who_ , sir?" He could not move past it, the charge so ludicrous he nearly laughed. The rest, perhaps, if all in service of good, but this .. 

" _To the girl_!" Crozier's voice was tight with fury now. There was no mistaking it for anything else: not the tone of his voice, not the look in his eye. "And now to me."

Hickey did laugh, that time. He held respect for Crozier, of course he did — whatever he'd known of the man, whatever he'd _thought_ he'd known of him — Crozier was his _captain_ , now. But even he, it seemed, was not all-knowing. Not all-wise. "But she directs it! You should be prosecuting _her_ , not us who brought it —"

"Twenty for him."

"I mean, I might have just ended this thing, sir! She's had it kill one lieutenant —

" _Thirty_."

The numbers meant nothing. What was a lashing, other than an offense to all he'd done? "A marine, Sir John! Whose _name_ do you think is on that witch's tongue next? I just saved your _life_!" 

Without thinking, without even meaning to, he hit the table with his palm. The sound it made when Crozier slammed his fist on the table was much, much louder. The anger on Crozier's face was perhaps the loudest of all.

Hickey stepped back, instinctive, as if that could bring him out of range of Crozier's wrath.

Crozier let the moment settle. Let them sit with his anger, with their fear. He nodded, then, as if he'd come to a decision. Though he spoke to Little, voice low and rough and very final, he did not take his eyes from Hickey.

"Lieutenant Little … tell Mr Johnson that Mr Hickey will be punished as a _boy_."

The very room, it felt, inhaled. It held its breath. The ship, no less icelocked than it had been, pitched sharply.

"Francis," Fitzjames said. Had there been any sound in the room, any at all, Hickey would not have heard it.

Crozier seemed not to have. " _Out_ ," he growled. "Little — get them _out of my sight_."

_Them_ , he'd said. But he was still staring at Hickey. And Hickey — flinched. He hadn't meant to. Had meant to hold Crozier's stare for as long as he could; for longer. Meet his gaze until Crozier faltered. But he … he stared ahead. Stared toward Crozier, but not at him; he could no longer bring himself to see what flamed in Crozier's eyes. Little grabbed his shoulder roughly.

The walk — the _march_ — to the mess seems endless; longer, certainly, than the journey to get the Esquimaux girl had been. Longer than the journey there and back combined.

The sound of the men's boots on the deck was indistinguishable from the beating of the drum, indistinguishable from the pounding of Hickey's heart in his throat. Hartnell and Manson whispered to each other. They did not look at him. Did they blame him? Did they see folly, now, in what they'd done? Because they'd been _right_. He'd been _right_ —

The air was still and thick; he felt light-headed with it. Distantly he heard Manson scream. 

A ship was full of ritual. That was what it was, he'd learned by now: hope and fear and ritual and superstition, more than wood and metal and rope. It was impossible to stay removed from it: a mass of humanity crowded together, its best and its worst and its bravest and those along for fame or glory or opportunity. For escape.

The marines stripped him down, they shoved him forward. They didn't speak, to him or to each other.

Hartnell was strung from the beams, bleeding. Two of the ABs untied one of his hands, one after the other, steadied him as he fell back onto his feet. 

Hickey stepped forward; he no longer needed to be shoved. This many men in one room, it seemed there should be noise, the murmur of speech, the creak of hammocks, the scrape of forks on plates. There was nothing but the drum again: or Crozier's voice ringing out. Reciting the charges against him.

"For the crimes of insubordination. Neglect of duty. Disrespect. Brutality. Kidnapping. And _dirtiness_."

Crozier was looking in his direction. Crozier did not look at him; he spoke to a higher authority than that.

Opposite Crozier: Jopson, ever the dutiful servant, eyes downcast but his body straight, in perfect alignment with his master. 

And next to him … Hickey's gaze shifted just in time to see Irving look away. If Jopson's eyes were politely averted, Irving's were boring through the floor: to the hold, to the ice and all the monsters of the deep, possibly into hell itself.

A table was sat where Hartnell's feet had been, its legs more sturdy on the ground than his, the shade of it hiding the blood on the ground. Crozier's voice rang out, each word clear and true: "Petty Officer Cornelius Hickey will be flogged _thirty_ lashes … as a _boy_."

They pulled him forward. They tied him to the table. He looked around, but no man would meet his eye; and fittingly so: he himself was a man no longer. Crozier had decreed it. 

They shoved him down, pulled his drawers around his ankles. He was tied too tightly to keep his head raised above the table, and without his willing it, he turned: nearer than Irving, nearer than Jopson, just about as near as a man could get — 

He caught Billy's eyes. Billy swallowed, heavy. Hickey didn't say the words, didn't even mouth them, but he knows Billy could hear them just as clear as he could: _there are worse things than being lashed_.

Hickey's lips formed some imitation of a smile. Billy looked away. The whip cracked.

**FIN.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hoooooooly fuck this is the longest thing i have ever written. again: a world of thanks to vigilantejam. i would have given up on this ... uh, well, i think you know about how many times i threatened to give up on it. sorry. and thanks.
> 
> the rest of y'all: thank you so much for sticking around, pals!! it means a lot, hope you enjoyed, etc. i will see you around ❤


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